Demon Angel

expression then, felt the isolation that weighed on him. She should use it against him— would have to, eventually.
    But not yet. Not until Lucifer demanded it.
    She arched a brow and let her eyes glow. "I like twisted. And I well remember how you began to believe. If you like, you can invite a party of your friends to your home. I'll show up, attack you, transform and scare the hell out of them. I may not be Michael, but I can be very impressive." She flashed her fangs before retracting them again and grinned. "I'll even recite the terrible dialogue from your book. ' Away, foul fiend! Suck thy bloody heart of death !' is my favorite—though I don't recall saying that when we fought the nosferatu in Lille. I was not that ridiculous until I came to America."
    The corners of his mouth lifted into a smile, but his gaze was thoughtful. "You didn't know about the book when you left last night."
    "Oh, I've known for years and years," she said, rolling her eyes.
    Something tense within him seemed to ease. "You pointed them to the nosferatu and Polidori's somehow, but it was never with the intention of increasing their suspicions of me. You were angry about the book itself, but also because you failed to redirect the focus of their investigation." His eyes narrowed. "What did you do?"
    Sex again, and quickly. "I didn't kiss you last night," she said, and stepped forward, crowding him into the bookcase.
    "I won't forget to ask again when you are done. I'm not so easily distracted as that." He caught her waist, pulled her up against his lean, hard length. "It must have been something ridiculous for you to hide it with a kiss," he said against her lips. But he did not kiss her—no, he must be waiting for her to initiate it.
    "Not very well thought out," she agreed. "Colin saw me naked."
    His free hand buried in the coil of hair at her nape. "Many people have seen you naked." Then he stiffened. "He saw the symbols."
    A flash of jealousy from him, and she triumphed in it. His shields were good, but they were not as strong when she was this near to him, touching him. She only had to keep herself under control. Her hands curved over his shoulders, his muscles warm and firm beneath her palms. "Why did you write the book?"
    "Are we bargaining?"
    "Not officially," she said. "Just… trading."
    "And you'll kiss me if I do—or if I don't?" Humor and need in that deep-voiced question.
    She slicked her tongue over his bottom lip, quick as a cat. "Come now, Sir Hugh. Don't disappoint me."
    His eyes darkened, and he drew his moistened lip into his mouth for a moment, as if to savor her flavor. "I intended to give it to Michael. What did you give the detectives?"
    "Blow jobs," she said, and he laughed. It rumbled from his chest, through hers; her nipples tightened, still appallingly sensitized by his tongue, his teeth. She willed herself not to feel them and concentrated on the shape of his eyeglasses. Not the gorgeous blue behind them. "Colin and I forged a letter. Why would you give it to Michael?"
    "Because of Donne. And Shakespeare and Marlowe and Milton. What were the letter's contents?"
    Her throat tightened, and she could barely answer his question. "We described a fake dream, in which Polidori saw the nosferatu and a person who'd undergone the ritual. You remembered what I'd told you during the fire in London—about my attempts to earn a second immortality?"
    His fingers smoothed the hair at her temple. "Yes—though for other reasons, as well. And the letter also included the symbols? Colin copied them from your skin?"
    "Yes. Why did you publish it?"
    He shook his head, and his smiling lips brushed hers. "I never intended to. I had intended it for the library in Caelum, if Michael—"
    She had to silence him; there was no control in the way she took his mouth, took the confession from his tongue. It was not gratitude that burned in her chest—could not be. The book would destroy her if Lucifer ever discovered its existence. Knowing Hugh had tried to give her what she'd never obtained on her own should not create such an upwelling of pleasure within her, except that it was another vulnerability of his to exploit.
    And Lucifer would make certain that she collected his weaknesses like butterflies in a case, to pin and examine.
    Eight hundred years—she should have known them. He should not have been able to surprise her. Even human, even in this modern age, the scent and taste of him should have been familiar. Yet there was a