“I am more concerned with what you are thinking. I admit to being surprised that you are here. Moreso than I am that he is not.”
“This goes far beyond the North American firm. The development of an Infernal mask places everyone in jeopardy.”
“So what do you want me to do?” Her fingers stroked sensuously along the length of her tie.
Behind Sara, Reed could see the Eiffel Tower glittering with lights in the darkness. Odd that the backdrop would be so similar to the one he’d seen behind Raguel just a short time past. Two archangels, two continents, same view. They had more in common than that; they were both ambitious and frighteningly competitive.
“I want you to lend me the team of Marks you sent to California,” he said.
Sara laughed. “You do not ask for much, do you?”
“Nothing you can’t afford.”
“The question is: can you afford it?” The glint in her eye confirmed his earlier suspicions about what she’d want from him.
“You ask that as if it were a hardship,” he drawled. He deliberately focused on not betraying his growing tension. “Don’t forget how much you stand to gain beyond the immediate. To have your team outwit Raguel’s would be quite a coup for you.”
“I know how this benefits me, but what does it do for you?” Her blue eyes narrowed. “In addition to incurring Raguel’s wrath, you are also foregoing the possibility of humiliation for your brother.”
Reed stared through his drinking glass to the cubes of ice within. He rattled them absently before casting Sara a sidelong glance. “Forego Cain’s humiliation? Darling, you wound me. What could be more perfect than being the instrument of his deliverance and the tool by which he is rescued?”
He didn’t say that Jehovah might find his initiative pleasing, especially considering the possible consequences of failing to act. Pleasing God would only increase his chances of gaining a firm of his own.
But Sara was aware of some omission, as evidenced by the doubtful humming noise she made.
Setting his glass on the gilded coffee table, Reed stood. It was time to move in for the kill.
She held up one hand. “Did I not say that you would come back to me . . .on your knees?”
A smile curved his mouth. “But it’s so much more fun for both of us when you are on yours.”
Her lips parted and she backed up a step.
Reed moved toward her with deliberate leisure, his fingers on the buttons of his waistcoat. If he didn’t see to his own undressing, Sara would tear his garments from him. She took such pleasure in ripping into his outer shell, as if that would somehow expose the man he was within.
He could see the anticipation race over her skin and knew her nipples would be tight and hard, her sex hot and slick. Two weeks had passed since he’d indulged in Eve. Two weeks of celibacy that should have left him hungry for the hard screwing Sara relished. He hadn’t gone this long without a woman in centuries.
Shrugging out of his coat and waistcoat, Reed tossed them over the back of one of the chairs facing Sara’s desk. He tugged off his tie and belt, adding them to the pile. With every article of clothing he shed, Sara’s excitement grew. He could smell her lust, see it in the brightness of her eyes and the nervous licking of her lips. She reached into his pocket, withdrew his cell phone, and turned it off. Then she tossed it over to the chaise.
Reed reached for his fly. Her gaze dropped. He thought of stairwells and cameras and thickly lashed slanted eyes. His cock finally cooperated with his intentions, hardening from the heated memory.
“Before we get distracted,” he murmured, “I want you to tell your team in California to get ready for a mission.”
“I need them,” she retorted. “I’ll send another.”
His hands dropped to his sides. “They may not get there in time. That isn’t a chance I’m willing to take.”
Sara’s jaw tightened when she realized he’d leave if he didn’t get what he wanted. “You drive a hard bargain, mon chéri.”
“Isn’t that why you like me so much?”
CHAPTER 17
Eve pulled into the parking lot of a Motel 6 just off the highway in Upland. There was a convenience store adjacent and a grocer’s up the street. Turning off the ignition, she glanced at Alec before opening the door. He hadn’t said a word over the last few minutes, retreating into himself and hoarding his thoughts. She knew this was as difficult for him as it was for her. If she’d ever consider praying to a higher power for anything, it would be for the ability to help him instead of hinder him.
She pushed the door open and exited. Resting her forearm on the roof of the car, she looked around. Upland was inland from Orange County, which made the temperature hotter and the air drier. She missed the ocean breeze already, but Eve suspected that was part of a general homesickness for anything familiar. She was separated from her family and her best friend, she’d lost her job, and Mrs. Basso was gone. A hotel stay in a strange town only added to her feeling of being a fish out of water.
Water.
Thinking of the Nix, Eve pushed away from the car and shut the door. Alec appeared on the opposite side. Tall, dark, handsome, and brooding. He slipped shades over his eyes, hiding his thoughts from her visual probe. There was a huge gulf between them at the moment. Like the tide against the shore, they crashed together and drew apart.
“After we get a room,” she said, “I need to hit the convenience store for a soda and a prepaid cell phone.”
He smiled. “You’d make a good spy, I think.”
“I have a fondness for action flicks.”
Alec came around the trunk and offered his hand. She accepted, but the closeness was only superficial. Emotionally, he was miles away, which was why she took a room with two double beds.
“You two got any pets?” the desk clerk asked. He was a young man in his midtwenties, Eve guessed. Over-weight by about sixty pounds and a mouth breather.
She shook her head. “Just us. Please don’t put us in a room that has had pets before. I’m allergic to cats.”
“No problem.” He leaned over the counter and lowered his voice. “Someone in the area has been stealing pets and hacking them up. It’s in all the local papers. Just wanted to warn you.”
“Hacking them up?” she repeated, remembering the article she’d read earlier that morning.
“Nasty stuff. Disemboweling, removing the eyeballs . . . that sort of thing.” His tone was more gossip-monger thrilled than it was disgusted or disturbed. “I read once that most serial killers start out mutilating animals, then they progress to people.”
“So this area isn’t safe?”
“It is for humans.” He shrugged, straightening. “Not so much for pets.”
While she signed the paperwork, Alec paid the balance in cash. He stared at her from behind his shades, but didn’t say a word until they went outside.
“Something you want to say to me?” he asked as they skirted the front office and crossed over to the 7-Eleven parking lot.
“About what?”
“About the two beds?”
“No pressure.”
“Hmm.”
An electronic beeping announced their entrance into the convenience store. Out front, three cars were filling their gas tanks at the pumps. Inside, an elderly woman with big white hair manned the counter and two teens stood by the coolers against the rear wall, looking at the soda.
Eve grabbed a hand basket by the door and moved to the prepaid phones hanging on an end cap.
Alec gestured to the soda fountain. “Want something to drink?”
“Diet Dr Pepper, if they have it. Otherwise, I’ll get it in a bottle.”
“Okay.”
Alec walked away and she rounded the aisle, grabbing beef jerky, nuts, and Chex Mix. She had a vision of lying across her motel bed with junk food, soda, and a movie on the television. The mere idea of a few hours of decompression was heaven on earth. They wouldn’t head out to the masonry until night, so she had time to vegetate and make sense of life as she now knew it. With that in mind, she grabbed chocolate, too—Twix, Kit Kats, and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.
Eve was making her way around the next aisle when the Infernal stench hit her. She sought out the source of the putrid smell and settled on the teenagers by the rear cooler. One wore a hooded sweatshirt with the hood up. The other wore a Hurley T-shirt and unkempt hair. On his nape, a tattoo of a diamond animated. It rotated, displaying the glimmer of its various facets.
She gaped, unmoving. As if he felt the weight of her stare, the hooded boy turned his head toward her. Eve’s gaze dropped, her obscenely steady hands absently pulling unknown items from the shelf into her basket. She continued down the aisle, witless with fear.
Look harmless and busy, she told herself.
“Angel.”
Jumping a good foot into the air, Eve spun to face Alec, who approached with a rapid stride. He caught her elbow and drew her farther down the aisle, away from the Infernals.
They were everywhere. How could she have forgotten that for even a moment? The weight of the knowledge was crushing.
As they feigned a preoccupation with shopping, Eve and Alec furtively watched the two young men withdraw energy drinks from the cooler and head up to the register. The clerk greeted them cheerfully and rang up their purchases. Her eyes were rimmed with gobs of mascara à la Tammy Faye Bakker and her lips were rimmed with the wrinkles of a lifetime cigarette smoker, but her smile was genuinely warm and her manner sweet.
The woman had no idea what she was dealing with.
“You okay?” Alec murmured as the young men left the store.
Eve nodded and released her pent-up breath. “They just took me off guard.”
He rubbed her lower back.
“You know,” she said. “I appreciate being able to smell them. I think I’d always be terrified if I was second-guessing everyone I met.”
Alec nodded grimly.
“I guess my nose still isn’t working right, though,” Eve noted. “You smelled them from across the store. I had to get within a yard of them.”
