“Will do, Doc.” Then Quel brought his mouth to her ear. “But first, we’re gonna talk.”
“I didn’t mean it about not wanting to see you anymore.” She assumed that’s what he wanted to know. “I feared for your safety. I feared for your life.”
“I hope you learned your lesson. I can take care of myself. And I can take care of you.” His expression was fierce as he tugged on her hand. He found a quiet spot under a stand of fragrant conifers. There he stopped and turned to her. “From the very beginning, I knew you were lying to me.”
Shay’s heart sank.
“From the night you showed up, I was dead set on uncovering your little ruse, even if it happened under the covers. One thing was pretty damn certain: I wasn’t going to fall for you in the process. No way in hell.”
Shay bowed her head.
“I asked you out for a drink on your night off for investigative purposes. Then there was our hot little hookup afterward. I’d say that was 100 percent investigative, too, but I’d be lying.” He took her face in his hands, forcing her to look up at him. His eyes weren’t angry, they were heartstoppingly tender. “The woman who started out as a she-demon turns out to be a virgin. Then she tells me we’ve got history I don’t even remember but I sorta do, especially when we’re kissing and I feel like I’ve been to that little corner of heaven before—so to speak.”
“It is heaven,” she whispered, imagining what God’s domain would be like: all good, nothing bad.
“Shay, you’ve got me turned so inside out I can’t think of anything else. I can’t have that. No way. I’m a sixth-degree demon hunter, and I’ve got a job to do.” He swept her into a passionate kiss. She could barely stand up when he was done. “How do you frickin’ do that?” he said harshly against her mouth, sounding winded himself.
“Whatever it is, you do it to me, too.”
“I’m thanking God it’s mutual, because I wouldn’t want to live knowing that it wasn’t. I don’t want to live without you at all. Angel, I know we’re only getting to know each other again. I know you’re just getting to live for the first time. What I need to know is if you wanna do it with me?” He pressed a finger to her mouth. “You’re mortal now, so you have to think like one. That means waiting before you answer.”
“Quel . . .” she mumbled, wanting to reply.
“Hear me out, woman. Life is short. That means you don’t have to say yes to spending it with me.” He stroked his knuckles down her check. “But you goddamn better.”
“And I goddamn will.” Smiling, she wept tears of joy that he gently wiped away.
Ten
The ring of a phone pierced the early morning silence. Shay’s hand popped out from under a pile of blankets, hunting blindly for the contraption. For all she loved modern technology, there were times she despised its intrusions.
She found the phone and brought it to her ear. “Laredo and d’Mon,” she answered. “Demon Hunters, Incorporated.”
Quel’s body was large and warm pressed to hers. His hand slid up her leg, then her thigh. Grinning, she stopped those clever fingers in their tracks so she could concentrate on the call. “Yes, we’re available. Yes, we can fix your problem.” Hanging up, she turned to scribble the information on a bedside memo pad.
“What do we have, angel?”
“Small town about a hundred miles north of here. Hellhole. Goblins have been disrupting the ski lifts.”
“Sounds easy enough.”
“Snow and goblins? I suppose. What I’d really prefer is another gargoyle-demon assignment. I loved New York City.”
“Manhattan’s better in the spring.” He stroked his hand up and down her leg. “We don’t need an assignment for me to take you there.”
He was right. Business was good if mostly uneventful. Neither one of them complained about the lack of challenge in most of their assignments. Someday, Lucifer might try to hit them harder. For now, he’d taken his defeat, and they’d take the respite. It left her with energy to spare for her charitable work with children from poor areas in New Mexico, where Quel had experienced his rough upbringing. Shame over her past deeds had initially driven her to help innocents, although Harmony assured her she’d been forgiven by “the Big Guy upstairs.” The fact that she really did care about what happened to the kids had kept her involved ever since.
In Mysteria, she and Quel helped Harmony and Damon protect little Damon, planning to extend that assistance when the Faithfulls’ second baby arrived in a few month’s time. No one knew if the second child would have powers or if little Damon’s amazing abilities were a fluke. The town’s collective breath was held as everyone awaited the news.
Tossing aside the pen, Shay took refuge back under the covers in the rustic mountain cabin they rented every once in a while. Quel peered out the frosted-over windows. “It’s a frickin’ blizzard out there.”
She sighed in bliss. “I know.”
“You’re crazy, woman, wanting to stay up here in a snowstorm. It may be why I love you.”
She straddled him. “One of the reasons.”
“I hear wind,” he said. “And snow drifting up over my jeep. I hear my stomach growling for a cheeseburger and a beer, and my ass telling me it wants to be sitting on a warm couch watching the football game.”
“I hoped you’d have a better time up here. I thought maybe it would jog your memory of when we used ride out the storms together. The first time.”
“The first time,” he muttered. “Angel, this is the first and definitely the last time we’re camping in the middle of a blizzard—”
She silenced him with a kiss. “Swift River was never this cranky.”
He slid his fingers behind his head as he sighed.
“Quel?” Shay asked, worried.
He sighed again and rubbed her back. “Look, Shay, I’ve never loved anyone—or anything—as much as you. Every day it gets better. But when you get to talking about our ‘first time,’ I get possessive, even though the man you’re referring to is supposedly me.”
“He is you . . .”
“No,” Quel said. “He’s not. I’m me.”
In his voice and words, Shay sensed his disappointment and even jealousy. The mentions of Swift River had cast in doubt that what he shared with her was special between them, and only them. Shay ran guilty fingers over her lover’s handsome face, hoping that what she felt in her newfound heart got through to him. “Quel, it’s not like that. When I look at you, it’s you I see. It’s you I want. It’s you I’m in love with.”
“Yeah, I know.” He smiled. That smile made her heart ache. He had the patience of a saint. She’d made a mistake waiting as long as she had to tell him those words. For as long as she’d walked the earth, she knew shockingly little of affairs of the heart. The past six months had been a learning experience for both her and Quel but most of all for her. She hadn’t been capable of true emotions when she’d bedded Swift River. She was now, making her relationship with Quel a real one. Yes, there were moments she was sure Swift River and Quel Laredo were of the same, reincarnated soul, but the better she’d gotten to know Quel, the more the differences between the two men became apparent. For one, Swift River had been an open book, easy to read. Quel Laredo had been slow to give up his many secrets. Swift River had led a simple if not easy life, limited to the task of survival—his and that of his clan—whereas Quel’s survival had been more complicated. His scars were mostly internal as opposed to Swift River’s visible ones.
She shook her head. No more comparing. It was wrong. “I’m sorry, truly sorry. No more living in the past. From now on, I’m living for today and for however many tomorrows we’re allowed to have.” She poked him in the chest. “I intend to spend every last one of those days with you, Quel Laredo. In the future, when I ask you to camp in the snow, it’s because I feel peace here and want to share it with you, not because of Swift River.”
“Then we’ll continue to come up here.”