Rapture

Chapter Thirty

As Jim stood in that underground hallway, he was ready to rip his wingman a new one.

Of course, to do that, he’d have to peel that waitress off the bastard—and as much as he was a hands-on kind of guy, he wasn’t prepared to get that close to the Saran Wrap situation.

Fucker.

Literally.

And, yup, this happy little bump and grind put him in an even worse frame of mind: He’d come down to the Marriott ready to rip Adrian a new one over those photographs of that prostitute—and instead of finding the angel on the job, outside Matthias’s room? The SOB was nailing this chick in the same hallway where that operative had been killed by Devina the night before.

Like Jim didn’t already have a hair across his ass.

Those photographs, those goddamn photographs…

Adrian had said he’d been to a murder scene with Mels—and now the woman was showing up with pictures of a female victim whose hair had been dyed blond, and whose throat had been slit wide, talking about a pattern of runes that had been in the skin of the abdomen, but was now—gasp!—not there anymore?

That angel had to be the “why” behind the disappearance.

So it was time to have a come to Jesus with Mr. Eraser.

Meeting Adrian’s stare, he dared the guy to keep up with the fucking, and—shocker—the son of a bitch did.

The waitress was having a great time—at least, going from what Jim could see from the rear, her head thrashing, that hair flying, those arms contracting around Ad’s neck. For a moment, Jim thought back to some of his own sexual exploits—but then he settled on memories that weren’t relevant in the slightest:

Him with Devina. Used and abused by her and her minions in her Well of Souls.

He had no idea why he’d dwell on the shit. That hadn’t been about sex; it had been torture, plain and simple, and God knew he’d been trained for that.

Still, the images stayed with him, lingering in the background like a stink.

Made no sense. He’d had bones broken before—on purpose, by an enemy. He’d been cut in the past, too—strung up by his feet and beaten like a punching bag…oh, yeah, and that time in Budapest when he’d been packed into that car, driven out to the country, and left for dead after getting worked over with a claw hammer—

Abruptly, the waitress moaned the way women did when they weren’t faking it: this was not a contrived, pretty little sound engineered to make a guy think he was a sex god. This was the real kind, when the female was coming so hard she wasn’t even aware of the animal grunts she was throwing out.

As she thrashed, Adrian supported her up off the floor with barely any effort—then again, the chick was synched up hard, locked on him tighter than a coat of paint. And, shit, their movements were so universal, him pumping in an ever-increasing rhythm, her getting tossed around as those penetrations were received, absorbed, enjoyed. Watching it all, Jim probably should have been aroused. Should have wanted in.

At the very least, he should have stayed pissed off.

Instead, panic tingled on the fringes of his mind, memories of his arms pinned down and his own legs spread putting a fine sheen of sweat above his upper lip.

He turned away, not because he was so angry he was going to kill Adrian, and not because he was disgusted or too modest for the show.

His stomach churned.

The hands that took out his cigarettes shook ever so slightly, and the sounds as Adrian orgasmed made him shut his eyes for a second.

Naturally, the horny bastard went for a twofer with no recovery time.

And Jim couldn’t actually start smoking until the woman was gone.

Great.

When the pneumatics were finally over, Jim glanced across his shoulder. Adrian had slid the girl down to the ground and was letting her rest her head against his pecs. As he stroked her hair, he seemed utterly detached from her, to the point where he might as well have been in another zip code. Matter of fact, except for the instants when he’d shot his load, he appeared to have been on some kind of erotic autopilot the entire time.

Why the hell did he bother?

The waitress checked her watch, pulled herself together, and kissed Ad on the lips. Just before she left, she took a pen out and grabbed for Ad’s hand. With big strokes, she inked a number into his palm, and then curled his fingers up like she’d given him some sort of gift. Then on a twirl of her hair, she was off, all but skipping down the corridor in the direction that would take her to the restaurant’s kitchen.

Adrian did up the front of his pants with efficiency. “Before you get on your high horse, I put a protection spell all over the room. They’re fine.”

Jim lit up and exhaled hard, the smoke shooting out of his mouth. “What the fuck would Eddie think about this?”

Those already icy eyes narrowed into slits. “Excuse me?”

“You heard what I said.”

Adrian jabbed a finger. “You do not play that card. Ever—”

“What would he think about you down here, fucking some chick on the job.” Jim turned his coffin nail around and looked at the bright, glowing tip. “And you didn’t even seem to enjoy it—so it’s not like you’re off post for a good reason.”

Waves of rage distorted the air between them, the other angel’s anger so palpable it was practically a light source.

“I’m going to tell you this once,” the guy said. “And only once—”

“Eddie wouldn’t have been impressed by this—”

The attack was so fast, so vicious, Jim didn’t have time to ditch his cigarette. As Ad locked on Jim’s throat with both hands, that lit tip went up…and came down right in the collar of his shirt.

But the burn was the least of his problems.

Jacking his hands between them, he split that hold wide-open and snapped a head butt out, catching the other angel right in the soft cartilage of the schnoz. Except, apparently, Adrian didn’t have any feeling there either—he just threw out a curving right-hander that slammed into the side of Jim’s ear like an SUV.

Listing off to the side, he caught himself on a stand of chairs and one-eightied his momentum, pitching himself back at the guy—who happened to have found his fighting stance and was clearly ready to turn this into a UFC free-for-all.

There was a huge part of Jim that also wanted a good, bloody hand-to-hand fight with the guy. But it was hard to pull the soapbox, superior thing about Eddie when he was prepared to go a hundred and fifty rounds with the dumb man-whore down in this corridor.

One gut shot put a stop to the whole thing.

Jim faked out like he was coming in high, and Ad was so pissed off and juiced, the guy fell for it. As he left his navel undefended, Jim went in low and fast—so fast there was no chance to block, and so low that the cock and balls were involved.

Motherfucker was going to sing the high notes like Justin-cocksucking-Timberlake for a while.

Adrian caved in around his groin, his hands formed a protective cup that was about three seconds too late to protect his nads.

Jim shook the now-crushed cig out of his shirt. His skin had been burned on his shoulder, but compared to the ringing in his ears, it was nothing.

Wonder if he had a concussion.

More dementia was not what they needed in this round.

Standing over the bastard, Jim said in a guttural voice, “I know what you did.”

Adrian let one knee go down to the concrete floor. Then the other. “Duh. You frickin’ watched.”

“The prostitute. The runes on her stomach. You burned ’em off her, didn’t you.”

Ad started flapping his lips, but the curses didn’t carry far.

“Let me make myself perfectly clear.” Jim leaned over and put his face right in the guy’s grille. “You ever keep information from me again, and you’re off the team—if Nigel won’t arrange for it, I’ll fucking take care of the job. Do you understand me.”

Not a question.

As Adrian’s eyes lifted, they were like two blowtorches mounted through the back of his skull, but Jim didn’t give a shit. The angel could go volcano if he wanted; they were not going to operate on any other terms.

When Ad finally spoke, the words were hoarse, the other angel’s lungs still more focused on reoxygenation from the shot to the nuts than allowing him to bitch. “Do you think Devina…did that because it was going to help you?”

“Not the point.” Jim shook his head. “You do not get to edit this game—”

“Oh, so I’m an asshat because I was trying to help you—”

“I need to know what she’s doing.”

Ad fell back on his ass and scrubbed his face. “Come on, Jim, she’s trying to fuck your head because you won’t let her fuck your body. That and a physics equation and you can solve the mysteries of the goddamn universe. You know this. So why are the particulars of the message important.”

“If I can’t trust you, I don’t know where I really stand.”

“And if she gets under your skin, we’ve lost both you and Eddie.”

Their competing logic drained the final vestiges of emotion out of the air, leaving a pervasive exhaustion that was clearly communal.

“Goddamn it,” Jim breathed, as he sat next to the guy.

“That about covers things.”

Jim took out his Marlboros. The pack was mangled, a couple of the cigs cracked in half and therefore unusable. But he found at least one that was still intact enough to light.

As he lit up, he glanced over at where the fucking had gone down. The weakness he’d felt in those moments was just one more reason to hate the enemy.

Adrian glanced across. “Eddie would have done the same thing about those runes.”

“No, he wouldn’t have.”

Those eyes turned hard again. “You didn’t know him longer than a matter of weeks. Trust me—he did what was necessary in all circumstances, and anything that has to do with Sissy Barten is your Achilles’ heel.”

“Obstructing information—”

“Can we just drop this—”

“—is as close to a crime as men like you and I have.”

“—and get back to work.”

As tempers simmered again, like their respective pots had been returned to the godforsaken stove, Jim cursed. See, this was the problem with Eddie being gone. No ref to call the shot or the foul and get the pair of them back on track.

No voice of reason.

And Ad kind of had a point. Jim was a little obsessed about Sissy, and Devina was smart enough to know that. But after years of being in the field, the one thing Jim knew to value as much as his own competence was intel—information was always the best weapon and the strongest shield you had against your enemy. If you knew their thinking and their actions, their locations and their movements, you could formulate your strategy.

“There isn’t a lot of solid ground in this game,” Jim said after a while. “I’m fighting on sand, against an opponent who’s got her stilettos on concrete. Shit’s already stacked against us, and if you’re filtering, that’s one more thing I gotta frickin’ worry about.”

Adrian looked over, all dead fucking serious. “I wasn’t trying to fuck you. Honest.”

Jim cursed out an exhale. “I believe you.”

“I won’t do it again.”

“Good.”

In the aftermath, although they didn’t hug it up or some shit, he figured they could give themselves gold stars: This argument had gone so much better than that first one at the side of the road. Back then, Eddie had had to pry them apart. Guess they were making progress.

“One last question.”

Adrian glanced over. “G’head.”

“What did it say?”

As silence stretched out, Jim figured it wasn’t a good sign. Yup…if someone like Ad was actually choosing his words, it was a really bad goddamn sign.

“Do you want to win this?” the other angel demanded. “And I’m not talking about just this round. I’m talking about the whole goddamn war.”

Jim narrowed his eyes. “Yeah. I do.”

Jesus, he realized, that actually was the truth.

“Then don’t ask me to translate. Nothing good’s going to come out of it.”

There was a tense silence while Jim measured his partner: man, Adrian was meeting him right in the eye, without any kind of prevarication, everything in that big body still as if he were praying for the right answer to come back at him.

Shit, the burn to know to the particulars was like the worst kind of indigestion…but it was hard to argue with the other angel’s dead-and-serious.

“Okay,” Jim said roughly. “Fair enough.”

Up in Matthias’s room on the sixth floor, Mels lay lax on the bed, her arms loose, her legs twitching involuntarily, her mind blown and then some.

She felt like she’d had the best workout she’d ever gotten at the gym, followed it by the most incredible yoga session, and topped things off with a visit to a spa that specialized in deep-tissue massage and reflex-frigging-ology.

Oh, and also sat down at a DIY sundae bar that had hot fudge made out of Lindt truffles.

Bliss. Pure bliss. The best sex she’d ever had, even though they hadn’t actually had sex…

Next to her, Matthias was curled on his side, his head on the only pillow left on the bed, one arm tucked in, a little self-satisfied smile on his harsh face. Looking over at him, unexpected tears pricked the corners of her eyes. He’d been so generous, not asking for anything in return, seemingly satiated just by the act of making her feel good.

“What’s wrong,” he said quietly as he brushed away a tear with his forefinger. “Did I hurt you?”

“No, God no…I just…” It was hard to explain without running the risk of his feeling inadequate—and that was the last thing she wanted, after all he had done for her. “Just emotional, I guess.”

“Bullshit. You know what it is.” His voice was level, his hand steady as he stroked back her hair. “And you can tell me.”

“I don’t want to ruin this.” She sniffed a little. “It was so perfect.”

“So what are these for?” Matthias turned that forefinger around so she could see the glistening on the tip. “Talk to me, Mels.”

“I really wish I could give you the same…you know, I want to do those things to you.”

His expression didn’t change, but she knew she’d hit him where it hurt: She could tell by the way his breath stopped, and then abruptly resumed—like he’d reminded himself to draw air.

“I’d like that, too,” he said roughly. “But even if my plumbing worked, what I’ve got to offer you isn’t worth seeing, much less touching.”

“I told you, you’re—”

“And besides, what we did is more than enough for me.” Now he smiled, though his eyes remained grave. “I’ll always remember it—and you.”

A cold wave of dread rippled through her, replacing the warmth.

“Do you have to go?” she asked after a moment.

“Yeah, I do.”

Mels reached over and pulled the blankets around her body. “When?”

“Soon.”

“Do me a favor?”

“Anything.”

“Tell me before you do. Don’t let me find out because I can’t get ahold of you. Promise me that.”

“If I can, I will—”

“Not good enough. Swear to me that you’ll tell me—because I can’t…I don’t want to live with the uncertainty. That’ll be hell for me.”

He closed his eyes briefly. “Okay. I’ll let you know. But I need something in return.”

“What?”

“Stay with me tonight. I want to wake up with you.”

Her body eased, her heart unclenching. “Me, too.”

When he held his arms out, she nestled in against him, putting her head against his chest, hearing the beat of his heart as his hands circled her back, and rubbed slow and even. Talking about sex and departures made her anxious; the contact, however, calmed her down to the point where she began to drift off.

Unfortunately, she had a feeling he wasn’t doing the same, and wished there was some way to have him relax. But it appeared this was yet another thing about them that was a one-way street.

“Matthias?”

“Yeah?”

I love you, she finished in her head. I love you even though it doesn’t make sense.

“After you go, can you ever come back?”

“I don’t want to lie to you,” he said hoarsely.

“Then I guess you’d better not answer that.”

Matthias turned his face into her hair and kissed her. “I won’t leave you hanging.”

Oh, but he would. After this was all over, she had a feeling she was going to be looking for him in any crowd, on every sidewalk, around each corner.

For the rest of her life.

Loss just plain sucked, she thought. And one would assume that as you got older, along with the other skills that you developed whether you wanted to or not, you’d get better at it.

Instead, it just seemed to kick up all the full list of things that you’d been forced by fate to leave behind: The fact that he was going to peel out of her life like a car pulling away from a curb made her feel as though her father had died yesterday.

Mels shifted her arms so she could hug him as well. And of course, the instant her hands made contact with his body, he stiffened—but screw that. He was going to have to let her touch him in some way.

Battered though he was…scarred though his skin remained…he was beautiful to her.

“You’ve ruined me for other men, you know,” she said.

He laughed harshly. “Not unless you like the Frankenstein types—”

Mels jacked her head up. “Stop it. Just—stop it. You can’t keep me from giving a crap about you, and you’re just going to have to suck it up if I want to put my hands on you. We clear?”

In the dim light that came from the bathroom, he started to smile, but then lost the expression, a strange emotion filtering through his features.

In a low voice, he said, “You’re an angel, you know that?”

Mels rolled her eyes and put her head back on his pec. “Hardly. You haven’t heard me curse yet?”

“Who says angels can’t have potty mouths.”

“No way.”

“Oh, and when have you met one lately?”

For some stupid reason, an image of Jim Heron jumping forward and putting his own body in the way of that ceiling panel shot into her head.

Unless he’d shown up at that very moment, she might have been killed.

“Actually, maybe you have a point,” she said on a shiver. “I could see how they’re out there…I really could.”