Domiel (5 page)

“Knock yourself out.”

Domiel hadn’t grasped the gist of the situation just yet. “You’re coming with me.”

If nothing else, that got his attention. Not a big surprise there. The black of his pupils tinged with red when he looked at her, his demonic side surfacing. “You think I’ll dematerialize?”

“I know you will. Come on, I have mud stuck in places that have never seen the light of day. I promise, I won’t bite.” She flashed her fangs to lighten the mood and waited for him to follow her.

He shifted and ran a hand over his short crop of hair. “So this is how it’s going to be? What about when it’s time to rest?”

“I have forty-eight hours to clear my name. Who the hell said I was going to rest?”

The muscle in his jaw tightened, and he held his hand out for her to precede him. “Forty-seven hours and counting.” When they got to the bathroom, he crossed his arms and leaned against a towel rack. “Make it quick.”

Why was he acting like a martyr? She was about to undress in front of him, yet he wasn’t showing any sign of caring. The Domiel she knew would be salivating with a wicked smile plastered on his face.

She couldn’t count the number of times he’d jogged past her smelling like women’s perfume, late to training for reasons everyone knew about, constantly wearing a lopsided grin. He’d seemed fun and lighthearted, not at all the male who stared at her now, all serious and completely devoid of interest.

Was it her?

It couldn’t be. The bastard had fantasized about her. She wasn’t one of those chicks who needed a man’s interest to build her up, but this was bordering on the ridiculous. “Sorry I don’t have any go-go boots or aprons for you.”

Domiel’s large frame swallowed up the tiny blue bathroom and left little room to undress. She moved to face the rookie, her lips quirking when she took in all his leather again. She might not put on boots and aprons for kinky sex, but she wasn’t shy. She slipped out of her nasty top.

His golden eyes fastened on her. “You really … entered my dream?”

She smiled when his voice caught. Finally a reaction. “It’s the way I communicate with my powers. You were sleeping, so it was easy.”

His gaze shifted away from her when she shimmied out of her pants, and once again she noted how different he was with her compared to the other women. She hadn’t missed the slight bulging of his leathers, though.

“I see. I didn’t know vampires could inherit the powers of an incubus.”

“Guess some of us are just lucky,” she lied. She unhooked her bra and slid out of her panties. The silky scrap of fabric caught on her muddy thighs and elicited a slight wiggle of her hips to slip to the floor.

Domiel still didn’t look at her. Hell, he didn’t move a muscle that wasn’t attached to his jaw bone. Unless you counted his …
shit!
Why did she care? Probably because that man didn’t have a shy bone in his body. Why wasn’t he trying to make a move? This was going beyond ridiculous now. If she started batting her eyelashes at him she’d kick him in the nuts.

Kelsey brushed dried mud off her breast. Yeah. That was why he wasn’t all over her. Dried blood caked to her skin, the sweat of over twenty-four hours clinging to her pores. “You think I’m guilty?”

He waited until she’d turned on the water and got into the shower before he answered. “I’m tasked with bringing you back.”

She washed her hair twice, scrubbed her skin until it was bright pink. The wound in her thigh was still there, so she was careful not to aggravate it. It occurred to her as she was rinsing the last of the shampoo from her hair that he hadn’t actually answered her question.

She peeked out from behind the blue shower curtain, soap bubbles sliding down her hand and arm. Still propped against the towel rack, Domiel could be the poster boy for boredom. “Do you think I’m guilty?”

His golden gaze locked with hers, but he said nothing.

That in itself was answer enough. “You know, if I’m forced to sit around and twiddle my daggers, I don’t think that should count against my forty-eight hours.” She let her gaze drift down the front of his body once again as she waited for him to say something, which he didn’t. That black T-shirt hugged nothing but sin. “Can you hand me a towel?”

She used her foot to shut the shower off, not taking her gaze from him. When he’d grabbed a towel and leaned forward to hand it to her, she opened the shower curtain, baring everything but her social security number. Why she did it, she’d never know. To tease him, maybe. To see what he’d do.

He did nothing. She couldn’t blame his lack of interest on the dirt now. Finding it odd that he wasn’t putting the moves on her was an understatement. The male would seduce a deck of cards if it had a vagina. She took the towel he offered, confused that he merely stepped back and averted his eyes.

“What? Is this your way of not mixing business with pleasure?”

He finally cracked a smile, almost resembling the Domiel she knew. “No.”

She wrapped the towel around herself and stepped out of the shower. “Okay.” The rookie had his game face on. That was understandable. Rookies were always so serious on their first mission.

For some reason she thought he’d be different. He’d been so laid-back at Headquarters. Maybe he just wasn’t good under pressure. Or she could have thrown him off when she’d jacked the hell out of his first mission.

She set her left foot on a small stepstool in front of the sink and began to dry off her leg, bending over and loving it. Eye-level with his zipper, she glanced up with a smirk on her face. He was hard. “So. Can you cook?”

His face flushed, but probably not because of her question concerning his culinary skills. “I’ve never been in front of a stove.”

“Me either. I’m starving.”

“Never? Certainly you’ve cooked.”

She switched legs. “Why? Because I’m a woman?” She picked up her black bra off the floor and glanced around. She needed to wash it. Using the small sink in the bathroom, she used a few drops of body wash to clean it up.

“You said it, I didn’t.”

“Fine time for your humor to come back. I find it lacking.”

“One can’t excel at everything.”

She was certain he excelled at
one
thing, although having just fallen from grace he remained ignorant in most. She dressed slowly, still trying to antagonize him. She wondered what Dr. Phil would say about that. Not particularly interested in sex with everything on her mind, she still couldn’t stop trying to get a reaction out of him. She’d probably shit her spleen if he suddenly picked her up and tossed her on the counter.

She swallowed and held out her damp bra. “You can dematerialize people, can you materialize your things? My things?” She’d heard he couldn’t, but there was no harm in asking. In fact, knowing his weakness had benefits.

He raised an eyebrow at her dangling bra before inspecting the wallpaper again. “No.”

Damn. Wet bra it was. She rubbed a towel over it and yanked it over her head. At least it was clean.

After sliding the turtleneck over her head and slipping into her slacks, she turned to him with a sigh. “Let’s see what we have going on in the kitchen.”

She had no idea how to cook, and that was the truth. She’d always had either servants who did the cooking or employees of the Alliance who saw to the food preparation. Moving into the kitchen, she was surprised to find herself wishing she knew how to cook a good steak. The last meal she’d had … she couldn’t quite remember what she’d eaten.

After a bit of searching, she found something she was certain she could make. She held the package up for inspection. “The art of the hotdog. It’s about all I have to offer in culinary skills.”

Domiel leaned toward the plastic-wrapped wieners in her hand and cringed. Food at the Alliance consisted of healthy, delicious meals to keep the assassins at their peak. No wonder he had a sick look on his face. He’d only had the best since his fall. Of course he hadn’t hit the fast-food chains yet. Most assassins didn’t have time to eat anything else while on missions, and this was his first mission to date. McDonald’s remained her personal favorite.

“
That
is unacceptable,” he stated.

What a devo. “You think you could do better?”

“Without a doubt.”

Kelsey smiled and stood back. “Go for it.” Domiel looked lost as he glanced around the kitchen. “Well? What are you going to make us? A chicken spinach quiche?” she goaded.

He slid past her to open the door to the refrigerator. Scanning the contents, he called over his shoulder. “I’ll find something. Don’t worry.”

The heat of her shower had loosened her muscles and made her tired. Despite being exhausted, she enjoyed the banter and the simplistic goal of finding something for dinner with Domiel. In recent months, before she’d returned to training, Lexie and Jade had tried their best to lighten Kelsey’s mood and bring her back from the darkness of her ordeal with the spiritual demons, and they’d only known half of what went down. Despite their best efforts, nothing had worked, and she’d merely gone back to training, nightmares and all. She’d been so damned ready to go after the demon, and she’d wanted to do it with the backing of the Alliance.

She should have told the Alliance about the demon sooner, but she’d been afraid they would have thought her insane. Right after the possession everyone had walked on eggshells around her. Telling them she was being stalked by an incubus—one who’d actually helped her during her possession—would have put the Alliance on red alert when it came to her and her recuperation. She’d been wound up so damn tight, she’d kept everything to herself and plotted to take back her life in secrecy. Looking back, that probably hadn’t been the best way to go about it. Hindsight was twenty-twenty.

They didn’t even know about the migraines that tortured her more often than not. She’d had them ever since the possession, and she was afraid she’d always have them. Too bad aspirin didn’t work on vampires.

But now, as she watched Domiel stumble around the kitchen, she felt peace. The underlying current of Domiel’s task to bring her back failed to infiltrate the bubble of normalcy, and it was exactly what she needed.

During a time when she should be most on guard, she couldn’t quite summon the urgency to do so. Somehow Domiel had charmed her into compliance—without using a lick of charm.

Watching him hunt for food shouldn’t be the highlight of her month, but damned if it wasn’t. She’d enjoy herself for the next few hours and try not to contemplate what lengths Domiel would go to bring her back to Headquarters once her allotted time was up.

She feared she already knew the answer to that question.

* * * *

Domiel took this time for what it was: a reprieve. He had no idea what would come of Kelsey’s forty-six hour and counting search, but in being tasked with bringing her back, he’d been given something so much more—simple time with Kelsey. There was more to this woman than any other he’d come across. Something behind the strength she tried so desperately to portray. Something dark lying just beneath the surface.

He couldn’t be the only one who felt the darkness. Did it stem from her possession?

The other side she’d shown him this morning he’d only fantasized about in his dreams. Her brazen attitude in the bathroom didn’t mesh with what he knew about her. She’d never shown her sexy side—to him, anyway. It had taken all of his willpower, but he refused to show just how much he’d wanted to touch her. It was bad enough she’d witnessed his dream.

He’d been unable to concentrate on what he was there for when she’d done her best to antagonize him in the bathroom. Sense of duty hadn’t stopped him from taking what she’d offered. No, it was the knowledge that she wasn’t actually offering anything to him. He’d had the sinking feeling that had he tried to touch her, she’d have shut him down. She’d only been testing the waters.

Nonetheless, he could only give her the time he’d promised. To fail this mission wouldn’t just put his job at risk, it would endanger his soul. Lucifer wouldn’t hesitate to come to him, and with his name out of the Book of Life, Domiel had no power to refuse the demonic leader. Only Ambrose and the Alliance could keep him out of the Pit at this point, and here he was, defying their wishes.

Kelsey sat next to him at the dining room table teetering on the verge of sleep. The large window in the room allowed sunlight to shine on them, and no doubt that was attacking her energy as well. Older vamps could go into the sunlight, but it still took energy for their bodies to withstand it.

The silence tightened the air around them like a taut high wire, and he was just crazy enough to step out on it. “Why did you become an assassin for the Alliance? When did you sign up?”

She took a sip of Coke before answering him. “About seven hundred years ago. I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

She seemed guarded and vague, as though she had something to hide. Then again, who didn’t? “This is the way you want to live your life? Hunting and killing?”

Her glass of Coke caught the light from the window as she held it close to her mouth. “Why did you fall?”

So it was to be like that between them?
People usually opened up to him, but she’d just closed that conversation down as fast as he’d brought it up. Like her, he had no inkling or desire to talk about himself, so he pushed the questioning back to her court. “Tell me something no one knows about you.”

She smiled, and his gaze went straight to her lips. “Fine, I’ll give on that question. The movie
1408
scares the shit out of me no matter how many times I watch it. The worst part is when the writer tries to get out of the hotel room, and the room surrounds him with brick. Even windows turn to brick, and I get claustrophobic when I’m watching it.”

No one at the Alliance spoke openly of Kelsey’s possession, though Jade, fearless as she was, had mentioned it to him once when he’d been particularly harsh on Kelsey during a training practice the first day he’d met her. Unbeknownst to him, it had been Kelsey’s first day back to training since—what the Alliance referred to as—
The Incident.