Made sense that he’d want to fill a childhood void by performing.
“What?” he said with a smile. “You’re looking at me funny.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize … I like your eyes on me. Aw, look, you’re a blusher.” He put his arms on the table and leaned into them. “Be honest. Are you feeling sorry for me?”
“Not at all. But your life makes me respect you more.”
And there was another angle to it. She shouldn’t have been surprised to find that there was a real person behind the singer Teresa was so enamored of—but it had been hard not to put him on a pedestal because of his voice, and imagine that everything had been white-picket-fence for him. Funny, the disillusionment was not a bad thing, not at all. As he talked with her, sat with her, exchanged with her, he was becoming three-dimensional, something so much more than a handsome hypothetical with an awesome talent.
“Will you let me draw you,” she blurted. As soon as she realized what she’d said, she waved her hand. “Sorry, that’s just—”
“Yes,” he said with a slow, intimate smile. “I would love that.”
Cait reached into her purse without looking away from him, and took out her sketch pad.
“Don’t move—wait, you’re frowning.”
“Oh, I was hoping—never mind. This is fine, too.” As his smile came back, he relaxed again in the chair. “I can’t wait to see how you see me.”
Cait’s pencil found her right hand as she flipped to a new page and started fiercely putting lead on paper. Fast strokes, darting across the white expanse, pulling his features out of the flat plane, sculpting his face and shoulders, his glorious hair, his compelling, intense eyes—
“G.B.! What the hell?” A man leaned into the room. “I’ve been looking for you for a half hour. You can’t be late for this kind of stuff.”
G.B. bolted out of his chair and glanced at his watch. “Oh, God, Dave, I’m so sorry—”
“Spare me, okay? Just get your ass up to Rehearsal Three, now. We’ve moved in there because they’re installing new bulbs stage right and the noise is ridiculous.”
As the guy took off, Cait flipped her sketchbook shut and fumbled to get it in her purse. “I’m so sorry.”
“No, it’s okay, he’s tightly wound.” And yet G.B. looked stressed, all that relaxation gone. “I probably should go. I had no idea that so much time had passed.”
Cait got up, and in the process dumped half her purse out. “Damn it. No, no, I’ve got it—you’d better head off—I can find my way out.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely—”
As she looked up, he came in fast, and before she knew it, he’d planted a kiss on her mouth. Quick, soft, but the kind of thing that left no room to question where he wanted things to go: Friendship was not it.
Straightening, he said softly, “I’ll call you tonight.”
“Oh, okay, sure, thanks…”
And then he was gone, running off, his footfalls receding down the hall.
Left by herself, Cait looked around the room, as if the vending machine or maybe the refrigerator Chuck wasn’t allowed in could give her advice, answers, strength.
After a dry spell that had lasted how long, two great guys appeared at once.
Well, one guy was great. The other was … a maelstrom.
Come to think of it, put the pair of them together, and you had the perfect man.
Nature, however, didn’t work that way in this case. And neither did she. She couldn’t do both; she just didn’t have it in her.
The question was, who did she pick?
Chapter
Twenty-six
It had been a while since Adrian had been to the land down under—and no, not Australia. As he stared at the walls that stretched up indefinitely, his stomach turned, and he wished like hell he hadn’t told Jim he’d keep Devina busy.
Naturally, she’d propped herself up on her worktable, like she wanted to force him to look over there.
“Well,” she said in that deep, velvety voice of hers, “did you miss me?”
Glancing in the demon’s direction, Adrian felt his hatred surge. She was sitting there all crossed legs and cleavage exposed, clearly enjoying the fact that he’d given her a metaphysical jingle. Hah. What he’d actually like to “give” her was a stab in the back—just like what she’d had one of her harpies do to Eddie.
“Not in the slightest,” he heard himself answer.
“Aw, Adrian.” She hopped off her perch and started walking over, all hip sway and then some. “Still bitter about your buddy?”
“No. What’s done is done.”
That pout of hers relented a little. “So phlegmatic. You aren’t going to therapy by any chance, are you? I’ve found it’s helped me tremendously.”
“With what? Coming to terms with the fact that you’re going to lose this game?”
She stopped about a foot away from him, and her no-bullshit voice came out. “Don’t be so sure, angel. This round is going to go my way.”
“Bet you said that about the other three you lost, didn’t you.” He leaned in toward her, even though it put extra stress on his bad leg. “Losing all those times must have come as a shocker.”
“I’ve got two flags.”
“Only one of which you’ve earned.”
Now she smiled, her luscious lips peeling off her sharp white teeth. “Both are still mine.” She pointed over to a stout oak door that had iron reinforcements all over it. “Cast your eyes on my decor.”
Sure enough, over that exit, there were two of the game’s flags, mounted on the jambs.
Man, that pissed him off.
“You’re angry at Jim, aren’t you,” the demon drawled.
“No.”
“Liar.” Rising up on her tiptoes, she licked across his mouth, her tongue lingering on his flesh. “Isn’t that why you’ve come? To get back at him?”
“No.” If that was the case, he’d have left the other angel high and dry.
“Oh, really?” Her hands went to his chest, palms flattening on his pecs as her hips brushed the front of his. “I think you did.”
His body revolted at the proximity, his skin prickling up, his shoulders tightening into steel cables, his gut twisting even more. And all that got worse as he looked past her falsely beautiful face to that table.
Impossible not to remember what she’d done to him on it.
Abruptly, he wondered if Eddie hadn’t been right. A long time ago, after Adrian had finally gotten free from down here, his best friend had warned him that that kind of abuse lingered not just in the mind and on emotional levels, but in the soul, in the bones, in the blood.
Ad had brushed all that off, of course, but now…
Staring at that table, he thought that Eddie might have been right.
“You know,” Devina said as her hands traveled down, down, down his torso, “sleeping with me would destroy him. He’s very jealous of me, possessive—it borders on stalkerish.”
Adrian refocused on the demon’s jet-black, glittering eyes. “What?”
“Jim’s obsessed with me. Violently so. It’s actually very sweet. And your best revenge is to fuck me. He’ll never get over it—his best friend with his best girl. Come on, it’s the stuff of movies, right?”
As her words sank in, Adrian’s brows popped. Yeah, wowzer. He’d thought Devina was a lot of things over the aeons they’d been going around and around with each other, but he’d never felt as though she was out of her mind in the more conventional sense.
Like in Stacy-from–Wayne’s World nutso.
Go fig.
“Did you say you were in therapy?” Adrian shook his head. “Does that also include medication or are you trying to go natural?”
“I don’t believe in anti-depressants. I think they cloud the mind.”