Playing With Fire by Christine Pope Read Free Book Online Page B

fingers of dread worked their way down her spine. Her eyes were just fine. And she was pretty sure her brain was doing okay, too.
    “Who are you?” she whispered. Her throat felt like sandpaper.
    “What?”
    “I saw — ” She paused. What exactly had she seen? She didn’t know. She didn’t want to know.  
    What she did know was that it couldn’t have been human. Still, directly confronting him now sounded like a pretty terrible idea. And the thought of letting him back into her bed was even worse. But she knew with sudden, sickening certainty that she mustn’t speak a word of what she’d just seen.  
    She swallowed, then said, “That is, I’m not sure I want you to stay the rest of the night. If you don’t mind.”
    “If I don’t mind?” He sounded incredulous, and a bit angry, too. “Look, I’m sorry I woke you up, but — ”
    Such a normal, human reaction. Why did she get the sudden feeling that it was all an act, that he was merely saying the things he expected a regular man might say in a similar situation?
    “That’s not it,” she said quickly. “It’s just — I guess I’m used to sleeping alone.”
    Even in the dim light she could see the bitter twist to his mouth. “I can see why.”
    Once he’d delivered that remark, he moved past her and went to gather up his clothes. Funny how she’d barely noticed his naked form. Well, she supposed there was nothing like spotting a huge demonic shape in your living room to kill off the old libido.
    She didn’t bother to respond to his comment — not that she had enough functioning brain cells to come up with anything remotely clever. At least it looked as if he meant to leave without causing any trouble.
    In silence he pulled on his clothes, then draped his leather jacket over his arm. She couldn’t help noticing that he hadn’t bothered to turn on a light. Maybe he didn’t have any trouble seeing in the dark.
    She held her breath, wondering if he had seen her unease, whether he’d been able to read the terror she thought must surely have revealed itself on her face. But he only looked down at her for a few seconds, his expression inscrutable. “I’ll let myself out.”
    And he brushed past her, heading straight for the front door. He didn’t slam it, but he might as well have. The silence that descended after it closed behind him seemed to press against her ears, heavy as the air that preceded a thunderstorm.  
    For a long moment Felicia stood where she was, rooted in the opening between the two Japanese screens that hid the sleeping area. Belatedly, she realized her hands were shaking. She clenched them into fists and shut her eyes. At least he was gone. She wouldn’t think about what she had seen, or the fact that she’d let him touch her, had taken him into her body.
    Slowly she uncurled her fingers, then went to the kitchen and switched on the lights. She didn’t know how much a cup of tea was going to help, but at the moment she couldn’t think of anything else to do.
    She set the kettle on the burner, and turned on the gas.

    • • •

    Sloppy, Samael berated himself. Not just sloppy. Fucking sloppy.
    He maneuvered the Silverado out of the parking garage and pointed it west, toward his condo. What else could he do? Sometimes he’d join Abigor on the night shift if he didn’t have anything else going on, but his fellow soul-catcher thought he was safely snugged down with Felicia. Exactly where he should have been, except for that one error in judgment.
    Never let them see you. It was one of the most basic tenets of topside existence. Demons had all sorts of ways of tricking the eye, of making humans see everything except the truth. He’d used a variation of that manipulation to maneuver himself into the lineup at the speed-dating event where he’d met Felicia.
    These human bodies he and Abigor and all the others with topside duty wore were the first line of defense, but sometimes a demon form was necessary. And in those