Page 4

Indy

Brooklyn, New York

Three years earlier

The orange glow of sunset streamed through the trailer’s windows and across the canvas propped on my art desk.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show was playing on the TV, and Loren stood in the middle of the living room floor.

He had one arm hugged around his chest and the other dropped so he could cup a hand over his cock and balls.

I wasn’t sure how I’d convinced him to go this far.

It reminded me of my attempts at sexy roleplay.

He usually gave about fifty percent of what I asked for before his nerves or gentle nature got the better of him.

Like the time I talked him into playing kidnapper.

My so-called scary dog lacked the ability to be menacing even for a minute, so the act ended with me thrown over his shoulder and carried to bed in a giggling fit.

This exercise had gone as far as getting him out of his clothes and me seated before my easel, and now we were in a stalemate.

My lips curved in a smile before I called over in a sing-song voice.

“Loren…”

He glanced at me, sharply focused, and my heart flip-flopped.

I swallowed to keep my voice from cracking because the absolute smolder of this man was enough to choke me.

I smiled again, this one a bit wobbly, then flapped my hand at him.

“Pose for me, baby.”

His brows dipped, and I snickered.

Swiveling in my seat, I faced him fully and tucked my paintbrush behind my ear.

“It’ll be tasteful, I swear. Like an art class study.”

Snorting, Loren turned aside, giving me a view of his left hip and the soft ridges of his ribs, punctuated with muscles.

As if I wasn’t having a hard enough time concentrating.

Besides those impeccable obliques, he had an eight-pack, long sinewy arms with tendons that roped around his biceps, and the perfect Adonis V like an arrow that pointed straight at his dick.

The thought of it made my mouth water.

I swallowed again, definitely salivating, then added, “I never went to art school, you know. These are experiences that could really improve my craft.”

Loren looked at me again, more scathing than before.

“You’re full of shit,” he grumbled.

God, he was cute when he was pouty.

I stood, no longer able to resist the urge to get closer to him.

Maybe I should have taken up sculpture instead of watercolor.

That would have given me an excuse to touch every inch of him and claim it was research.

Instead, I shuffled over in my bunny slippers and entered his personal space.

When he didn’t quit his grip on his manhood or relax the arm barred across his torso, I laid my hands on the narrowest part of his waist and leaned against him.

“Please?” I batted my eyelashes.

“Let me paint you like one of my French girls.”

“No.”

His skin felt like velvet beneath my fingers, and those long, espresso-brown locks spilling over his shoulders invited me to play.

Forget painting. Forget posing.

We could take this exercise to the bedroom and turn it into a workout.

“Please?” I tried again, really milking it.

Despite me crowding him and craning my neck to catch his gaze, Loren kept his attention averted, watching Dr. Frankenfurter prance across the television screen with a level of interest that almost made me jealous.

After a long, quiet moment, I pinched his bare butt cheek.

He jumped, then glowered down at me.

“Come on, Lore,” I whined.

“At least fix your face. I don’t wanna immortalize you scowling.”

“I’m not…”

My chastising look silenced him.

He glanced over his shoulder at the wide, short window behind him with the curtains thrown wide to give a view of the trailer park outside.

He sighed loudly.

“The neighbors can see my ass,” he muttered.

Sure enough, a woman was out across the road, watering her hanging tomato plant and missing the best show of her life.

Catching Loren’s chin in my hand, I turned his face toward mine.

“Lucky them,” I said, bouncing my brows.

He rolled his eyes, and I pushed up to peck a kiss to his lips.

I stepped back and held up my fingers to make a frame, horizontal then vertical, sizing him up.

He harrumphed another breath while I pondered and finally announced, “I also don’t want to immortalize you with a limp dick.”

Loren grinned, wry and so damn sexy that I could have swooned like a southern belle, thrown myself backward and let him catch me, but he spoke first.

“So, you’re painting porn now.”

I crossed my arms, indignant.

“It’s a tasteful nude.”

He relaxed a bit more, hiding his junk while shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

With his body awash in beams of sunlight, he was even more stunning than usual.

“If it has an erection, it’s porn.” His voice was flat, but humor sparkled in his eyes.

If he kept looking at me like that, I was going to be the one with a hard-on.

I nipped my lower lip between my teeth and closed the distance between us.

My hands skimmed up his sides, then down to his thighs.

One strayed along the cut of that deep V, tiptoeing closer to the line of hair that trailed from his navel to his groin.

“Well, I like this erection,” I murmured.

“I think it’s beautiful.” I nudged his fingers where they curled around his genitals, trying to gain access.

“Beautiful?” he asked, sounding dubious.

Yes, beautiful. Every speck of him was gorgeous and, the more I thought about it, the harder he was to resist. Impossible, actually.

“Maybe I should take a closer look.” I dropped to my knees.

My touches grew insistent, moving his hand aside so I could grip his shaft and give it a teasing stroke.

Above me, Loren groaned.

The sound went south, warming my stomach, then winding its way lower.

His cock stiffened in my hand.

“The neighbors , Doll,” he said.

“At least close the blinds…”

Rolling his foreskin back, I thumbed over his exposed head, finding it soft and glistening.

Loren’s hand wove into my hair, looping the curls around his long fingers.

His protest meant nothing with the weight of his palm settling on me, holding me in place.

I hummed and nodded slowly.

“But the natural light is so dreamy…”

On the coffee table a few feet behind me, something else hummed.

Rather, vibrated. I knew the source of the sound even before I whipped around and pinned it with a death glare.

Loren’s phone skittered across the tabletop, its screen lit with an incoming call.

I glanced up and saw him watching it, too.

All signs of pleasure left his face, replaced by stony stoicism.

My grip tightened on his cock as if that would hold him.

“Can’t it wait? Call her back.”

He took my hand from around his erection and pulled me to my feet.

I sighed as he kissed my knuckles, then released me and walked around to retrieve his phone on the third ring.

My suspicions were confirmed when I glimpsed the ominous M on the caller ID before he cradled the device to his ear.

He didn’t say a word before the woman on the other end of the line started in with a bout of shouting I heard at range.

Loren shrunk from the verbal assault, pulling the cell farther from his face as his expression became pained.

The one-sided tirade continued while Loren nodded along.

Angry heat piped through me, bringing pressure that mounted until I had to turn away or risk shrieking like a boiling kettle.

I went to my art desk, plucked the brush from behind my ear, and stabbed it into the rinse cup where it set loose a cloud of murky blue.

It was a brief conversation.

Two minutes, tops, before Loren mumbled the usual “Yes, Miss,” and hung up the phone.

I stood with my back to him, staring out the window at the hills and trees in the distance.

The pinkish wash of dusk blanketed everything, but I couldn’t enjoy it while rage simmered in my gut and Loren scuffled around, quickly dressing.

After another minute or two, he came up behind me and touched my shoulder, then bent in to kiss my cheek.

“I hate her,” I said.

Loren nuzzled against my temple, and his hair tickled my neck.

He looped his arm around my waist and squeezed.

“I’ll be back in time for dinner,” he whispered.

When I didn’t respond, he added, “And I’ll cook.”

Unless he had a craving for microwavable frozen meals, the cooking was a given, but I didn’t answer beyond a curt, “Fine.”

When he pulled away, I placed my hand where his had been and held it there as I turned toward his departure.

He stopped at the door, holding his truck keys.

I wondered what the demoness had said.

What he was walking into.

What he wouldn’t tell me.

He might not have answered those questions, but I couldn’t keep myself from asking another.

“What’s her name, anyway?”

Loren cocked his head.

“You might call her Miss,” I explained, “but I sure as hell don’t have to. I’d rather call her Bitch Supreme. Or Cuntasaurus.”

He smiled again, barely there, and answered.

My eyes fluttered open to the inside of Sully’s apartment.

I sprawled in a heap of floor cushions, sweaty and frantically swimming toward the surface of reality.

It was more reality than I’d ever known.

A chaotic clash of life and death and a pain in my skull a thousand times worse than any hangover.

I could only peek out for a few seconds before an agonized wince forced my eyes shut again.

I groaned and rolled onto my side, smashing my hands on either side of my head because, if I didn’t, I was sure it would burst.

“Indy?” Sully sounded worried.

I was worried, too.

And sad, happy, angry, frightened, elated, devastated…

Aware.

Holy fuck, was I aware.

Drugs didn’t hold a candle to this all-consuming everything .

It was like a movie theater in my mind, spinning through reels of film too fast to make sense of any of it.

Moments snagged in the machine, historical stills from every decade.

I really did look good for my age.

So did Loren.

A whole new ache of understanding washed over me.

The demons, the hellhounds, Loren’s soul-binding contract…

His absence made for a grim fate, and I understood it.

I wished I didn’t.

Sully shook me.

My eyelids rolled open, and I saw books and bottles and candles and Loren’s sweater cut into pieces and sacrificed to the effort.

We’d started right then.

I dragged my druggie ass out of Sully’s bathroom, and we worked.

I wasn’t sure what I expected it to look like.

Maybe a cauldron and pointy hat for Sully?

That she’d shapeshift into some truer form that involved warts or green skin?

Instead, we went to the kitchen and boiled water in a stockpot.

It was more like making dinner than magic.

But it worked; I remembered.

I thought it would feel good to remember but, so far, it was excruciating.

Writhing onto my back again, I sucked a halting breath.

If there had been anything left in my stomach, I would have puked.

Instead, my empty gut twisted and lurched, and I sandwiched my palms around my skull, holding all the bits of me together.

The sweater had been rendered to yarn and braided into a bracelet added to the growing stack on my left wrist. The drab strip of greige was the polar opposite of the rainbow-beaded raver bracelet Sully made as my protection charm, but the sight of the two side by side made my heart throb.

They were like Loren and me.

My constant companion.

My mate. My love .

I loved him.

That feeling trampled all the others.

It was warm and wonderful and staggeringly deep.

Over and over, I loved him.

I lived for his shy smiles and tender touches.

I craved the cozy, quiet moments that brought peace to the madness of my world.

He filled my emptiness with so much care, and I loved him .

“Indy!” Sully called on me again, and I traced from her hand on my elbow up to her face.

Her brows were knitted together, and she held a pair of scissors.

Open. Poised. Angled toward my sweater-thread bracelet and ready to sever it.

“Don’t!” I sat bolt upright.

I snatched my arm away from her and cradled it to my chest, cupping protective fingers over the bracelets.

My look of warning rebuffed her, and she set the shears on the floor.

Even then, I wished she would give them a push and send them skittering like TV cops did when relinquishing their guns in a hostage negotiation.

Sitting upright made me woozy, and the pain persisted.

I could have used some downers about now.

Sleepless shadows ringed Sully’s mocha brown eyes as she scrutinized me.

Waiting for me to blow up, judging by the way she leaned back, poised for a speedy retreat.

She didn’t say anything as we both sat there, considering the weeks of failures that led to this success.

I knew about Evander and what he said in the park.

I knew why Loren didn’t like him.

I knew that I’d been an addict as long as I could remember, all the way back to the day Loren dragged me out of the scientist’s torture chamber.

He saved me then and had been saving me ever since.

More than those things, I knew about the demon bitch who had kept my boyfriend captive for the past century.

The woman who owned his soul and made his life a hell from which he could not escape. Her name was Moira.