Or at least I didn’t anymore. What would be the point?

The realization was freeing. I didn’t care about my rounded belly, my wide hips, the stretch marks that resembled a road atlas across my butt. None of that mattered anymore. Only this did.

Him. Me. Together just once.

He shucked his pants, then removed mine and joined me on the bed. I lifted my arms. He came into my embrace and brushed his lips across the slope of one breast.

“I know where beauty lives,” he murmured.

His dark fingers drifted over my skin, gentle and sure as he aroused me. He learned what I liked as I did. His clever mouth wandered; his devilish tongue arrowed in on erogenous zones I’d never heard of, as well as those everyone had.

His beard had lengthened past the rough stage and become almost soft. The texture both tickled and tormented, another sensation to add to so many. He teased me to oblivion more than once, and then he teased me to the precipice again.

“I can’t,” I gasped.

“You will.”

His body slid up and over me, nearly into me. I opened for him and he stopped.

“Ahhh!” I smacked his back with my fists and he choked on stifled laughter. The sound rumbled all the way to my toes, making me hum everywhere, making me want to laugh, too. To be laughing now was both a wonder and a gift—a downright miracle.

“This might hurt a little,” he said.

“What did I tell you about talking?”

His smiled deepened, and he kissed me, the way I was starting to crave. Hot, wet, lots of tongue. The man knew what he was doing.

While I was preoccupied with his talent at tickling my tonsils, he drove forward, burying himself inside.

It didn’t hurt. I felt…full. A tiny bit uncomfortable maybe—

I shifted, and something went ping. That hurt a little, but I forgot all about it when the very earth seemed to move. I know that sounds so dumb, but there you go.

Warm and alive he filled me. His body moved to an ancient rhythm—a rhythm echoed in the beat of my blood. I rocked against him; he rocked against me, and for that moment there were only the two of us.

His face was fierce, his eyes dark, intense as they stared into mine. I’d always thought sex an act better performed in the dark, but we’d left on all the lights, enjoying every sight, every sound. I couldn’t help but reach up and touch his cheek.

“Chavez,” I whispered.

He slowed, staring down at me with such an intense, searching expression, warmth spread through my chest. Something had changed, but I wasn’t sure what.

“My name is Zac.”

“Zac,” I repeated.

At the sound of his name on my lips, he pulsed inside me, the force of his release inciting my own. The orgasm went on and on—him, me, us—there was nothing and no one else, just the way the world ought to be.

When it was over, we lay tangled together. He stroked my hip; I played with his hair. I didn’t want to let him go, and that was a very dangerous thing to want.

“Did the world move?” I asked.

“Oh, yeah.”

He lifted his head, kissed the tip of my nose. I got that weird feeling again—the sock in the gut, the warm, gushy swirl. My eyes burned.

“What’s the matter?”

I glanced at the window. Still night, but not for long.

“You think we can do it again?”

He rolled off me but grabbed my hand as he went, tangling our fingers together, then playing footsie, too. “We can, but not right this second.”

I drew one finger over his tattoo. “What does this mean?”

He stiffened. “You know what a crucifix is.”

“Yes. But the circle?”

“Eternity.”

“Your mother—”

I bit off the word, but he already knew.

“It told you about my mother?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. She did her best.”

“Hurting you was her best?”

“She didn’t know any better. I was possessed by a demon. What was she supposed to do?”

I wasn’t sure. What would I do if my son had a bit of Satan inside of him? I hoped I never had to find out.

He touched the tattoo with his fingernail. “She gave me the cross. I did the circle myself.”

I thought of the pain he must have endured—at his own hands and those of someone he trusted. I wanted to take that pain away, but it was too late, and I didn’t know how.

“Why did you do it?” I asked.

“So I’d never forget what I’d sworn to do. If it takes eternity, I will kill every demon on this earth.”

I shivered, knowing that meant he’d kill me, too.

“Cold?” He pulled me closer. “I’ll keep you warm while we sleep.”

Oh-oh, said a tiny panicked voice in my head. I was in serious trouble now.

I’d vowed not to have sex without love, but what was I going to do now that I’d fallen in love because of the sex?

Not love. No. I was just dazzled by the orgasm. Once he killed me, everything would be different.

I pulled away. I couldn’t sleep in his arms and wake up to a gun, a knife, or whatever he planned to use.

Getting out of bed, I yanked the sheet along with me and wrapped it around my chest. Chavez didn’t even try to cover up, merely stared at me with wary, confused eyes.

“When are you going to do it?” I demanded.

“You have to give the equipment a rest, Kit. I’m not seventeen.”

“Not it, it. When are you going to kill me?”

His brows drew together; his mouth turned down. He sat up slowly, and I took a step back at the violence in his expression.

“What do you think I am? A monster worse than the ones I hunt?” He climbed off the mattress and began to stalk me around the room. “You think I’d make love to you, then murder you?”

“You have to, Zac.”

“Don’t call me that!” His voice broke, anguish washed over his face. “You can’t call me by that name and think I’d hurt you.”

I let him get too close and he grabbed me, then gave me a good shake. “I wouldn’t kill you. Not for any reason.”

“You won’t need to,” said a strange voice from the door.

I yelped and spun around. No big shock to find another stranger in my house. This guy was nondescript—not too tall, not too short, average weight, dishwater hair, gray eyes. But there was something strange about him that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

“Does a person have to be dead to find some peace around here?” I muttered.

Of course being dead didn’t seem to mean what it once had. According to Satan, the dead would soon be dating all over the place.

Chavez shoved me behind him, facing the latest demon wearing nothing but a scowl. “What do you want?”

“To set the record straight. I guess you didn’t tell her.”

Chavez’s shoulders tensed and I got a bad feeling.

“Tell me what?” I asked quietly.

Average Joe grinned. “There’s more than one way to sacrifice a virgin.”

10

I put my hand on Chavez’s shoulder and spun him around. “You knew that sacrificing the virginity would work as well as sacrificing the virgin.”

No wonder he’d been so insistent that he wasn’t going to kill me. He’d known he wouldn’t have to.

I’m not sure why the truth hadn’t occurred to me before now. Just because I’d been told the sacrifice would be my life didn’t make it true, especially since I’d been told that by a demon.

“Don’t listen to him,” Chavez said. “He wants to put a wedge between us. I’m just not sure why.”

I wanted to believe he hadn’t known. Really I did. But there was that voice in my head that kept saying, Did you really think he wanted you? Look in the mirror, then look at him.

But there was another voice that insisted Chavez was different. He knew about the ugliness that lived beneath the beauty. He killed it every day. He’d said he liked women with glasses, women who read. Of course that sounded like a bigger lie than any of the others.

“What were you talking to Samantha about all that time?” I asked.