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They won’t. But that hungry, desperate look in his eye might. The half sob as he tries to pull out and I yank him in deeper, using his shoulders for leverage, that might do it.

“I didn’t mean to love you,” he rasps into my sweaty neck as we pull apart. My toes hit the carpet, and it feels like I’m returning to Earth after spending ten minutes on some other private, primitive planet ruled by passion.

My chest burns. My thighs burn. I’m a sticky mess as I stumble away, shaking my head in confusion.Love me? He can’t. You can’t fall in love in three days.

Although I did it over a drunken weekend in Miami...

My feet freeze on the carpet, even though our mingled juices are dripping down my thighs and hurrying toward my calves.

Don’t. Don’t walk away. Everybody walks away from him, or he forces himself to hide from them.

He loves me because I’m different. And damn it...

I find Reggie sinking down to the carpet, looking winded and empty-eyed. “I didn’t mean to love you back.”

THE ITALIAN LUNCH ISgood, and the conversation flows. It’s because we’re playing roles in public, Reggie and Therese.

“Tell me about Alaska, honey,” Therese says, twirling pasta artfully through a cream sauce and spearing a shrimp.

“I have a friend who has a friend out near Fort Richardson—although now it’s a joint base, Elmendorf-Richardson. I hear a lot of soldiers go there for cold-weather training, but I have beenin Poland when there was snow three feet thick, in Oslo during blizzards.”

Therese’s fingertip traces over my knuckles as her eyes stare into mine. Just the touch of bare skin on skin reminds me of our wild sexual sprint. What if I got her pregnant?

It only takes once, isn’t that what they say in sex ed? Not that I was ever in that class, but I know they say that.

I’m messing up everything.

Therese doesn’t seem to think so. Playing the part of a woman who likes her second husband much better than the first, she flutters her lashes at me. “My ex used to seem so adventurous to me. Your travels are much more impressive.”

“A lot more painful, perhaps.” I don’t want to think about the things I have done and seen, the people I have saved, the people I have gladly ended while reveling in the fact that I had no soul to corrupt, so that blood can be on my hands and there will be less of it on the hands of desperate women and children, less on good men like Artie. My eyes stay on my plate.

I have a soul now.

Was the absence of one a help or hindrance during a war?

Her fingers etch along the lines in my skin, invisible to the naked eye, and yet she seems to know just how to touch each and every one, waking up the magic in me just like she snatched a soul from the ether and gave it to me... Or maybe she gave me half of her own?

I lift her hand to my lips and kiss the pale knuckles.

I would still gladly kill to protect this woman. Stain my hands with gore if she could remain untouched and safe.

“Whatcha thinkin’?” Therese sips coke through a straw in a way that makes my cock twitch.

“You spellbind me,” I whisper, enchanted just by looking at her, by feeling her touch on my sigils as her hand runs farther up my arm.

She coughs softly, eyes widening.

Right. We’re not in Pine Ridge, we’re miles out of town up by the mall. No magic here, and her touch has mine going haywire. I have to pull my Mr. Normal Guy Act back together. “Uh, I’m thinking... That I’m so glad I’m settled down, baby. Even if our careers move us around a lot, we’ll always be together. To me, that’s all that really matters. Home is where the heart is.” I finally have one that works.

“Oh, Reggie. Stop.” She runs a knuckle under each eye, catching the tears that form. “That’s so sweet.”

“Aren’t I supposed to be sweet to you? Love, honor, respect, and cherish. I heard him say it during the ceremony,” I wink, catching her hand in mine before she can wake up any other powers I was unaware of. Right now, I feel drunk—and tingly all over.

“Funny how I believe you when you say it. My ex was—oop. What’s that?” Therese looks to the side of the booth and grabs her purse. “The phone is ringing.” She holds up the small black one from Agent Powell as it buzzes softly.

“Well, tell whoever it is that we’re enjoying our wonderful honeymoon lunch and we’ll call them back.” I look around, then whisper, “If it’s urgent, take it in the ladies’ room.”

Therese nods and rises. I follow her, slipping into the alcove where the restrooms are located, standing guard.