Demon Marked

he’d be just as deliberate with a touch. But what would she like best? A rough caress or a gentle tease?
    Both, she thought. Just imagining the glide of his fingers seemed to tighten her skin, as if in anticipation—and he didn’t need to take his clothes off for her to feel this .
    Perhaps she didn’t even need to imagine Nicholas. Maybe it could be anybody.
    Now that thought made her curious. Was her sexual interest a physical reaction or an emotion? How could she tell the difference?
    Her gaze landed on the television remote. There was a fifteen-dollar answer. Watching a porn movie and cataloging her physical response might help her find out.
    Or she could skip that. Imagining a pimply-assed plumber rutting over a plastic actress wasn’t doing much for her now.
    Nicholas did something for her, though, and Ash didn’t think his looks alone accounted for it. She liked spending time with him. She liked his snarly responses when he forgot to maintain his icy composure—or when he couldn’t maintain it. She liked that she couldn’t anticipate his reactions. She even liked his obvious dis like for her, particularly when he couldn’t stop himself from laughing, anyway.
    She liked that he didn’t pretend anything. Oh, he lied, but that fascinated her, because it meant he thought the truth might give her an advantage. And he held back information, which was irritating—but even that provided an intriguing challenge when it forced her to figure out why he lied or held back info.
    But he was also different from the majority of the people she’d met, particularly those at Nightingale House. Rare was the adult human whose words and actions weren’t at odds with what they felt—adults who would stare at her tattoos and pretend not to notice them, who would carry on a conversation while completely preoccupied by some other matter, who would express some emotion when she knew they felt another. Nicholas didn’t do that. And although he hid his emotions from her, they weren’t difficult to guess: hatred and distrust, because she was a demon.
    He lied, yes. But at the same time, he offered her a different sort of honesty, one that she hadn’t known she’d appreciate until she finally met someone who was both open and hidden from her, at the same time. She couldn’t read him, but he didn’t pretend to feel anything other than hatred and distrust.
    Ash supposed she should have been hurt, or even offended. The soap opera ladies would have been. I’ve never lied to you; why won’t you trust me? But she suspected that liking would have to become caring before Nicholas could hurt her. Hopefully, her emotions wouldn’t develop that far—and if they did, she hoped that they also came with a survival instinct: not of the mortal kind, but an emotional one.
    No . . . Ash hoped that she had already developed that emotional survival instinct, because she had come to care about something: whether she’d see Rachel’s parents. It mattered. She could barely tolerate the idea that the only obstacle preventing her from meeting them was her inability to shape-shift.
    Determined, she focused on her reflection. How hard could it be? She didn’t even have to think about her eyes turning red; they just did. Why would shape-shifting be any different?
    She studied the shape of her face and imagined it changing. But into what? It was probably best if she resembled someone that everyone would trust, like the Brady Bunch mom. Concentrating on the tattoos, she pictured vermillion fading to a light tan. She pictured her chin narrowing, her cheekbones widening and flattening. She pictured hair of gold in a mod little pixie cut.
    . . . and nothing happened.
    Dammit. What kind of lousy demon was she? There had to be a trick to shape-shifting, but whatever that trick was, her procedural memory couldn’t recall it.
    Her attention returned to the tattoos on her face. Okay. So she couldn’t make her face resemble Florence Henderson’s, but she could find out what the symbols meant. Turning away from the window, she stripped off her jacket and tossed it over the back of a chair.
    When she slid down her sweatshirt’s zipper, Nicholas glanced up from his dinner and newspaper. He looked again when her T-shirt came off. For a moment, he didn’t react, then that cold amusement overtook his expression. His lips thinned and tilted upward just at the corners, his eyebrows lifting a fraction of an inch.
    He sat back in his chair, his gaze