Reese didn't covet often or easily, but she was feeling it now. A piece of it was probably leftover adrenaline, another piece of nostalgia. But she was also cold, and would rather have her own coat than borrow Dez's again. That had been far too . . . intimate. So, telling herself she would make it fast, she dumped her purchases in the car, stripped out of her bedraggled city coat and headed into the store.

"Can I help you find anything, ma'am?" The sales clerk had dark hair, decent body art, and a serious case of m.u.f.fin top.

Reese pointed. "I want that."

She got an up-and-down, and a cautious, "It's handmade and one of a kind."

"And?"

The clerk named a price that wasn't nearly as bad as Reese had been expecting based on what it would've gone for in LA or Denver. Besides, Strike had said "unlimited expenses," she thought with a grin, though it was doubtful she would turn in this particular receipt.

"Do you want to get it, or do you want me to?" she asked m.u.f.fin Top.

Five minutes later-and very conscious of the time, despite Lucius's a.s.surances that Dez would sleep it off even without the antidote-she slipped into what felt like a second skin. The lining was cool and slick, the cut somehow ruthlessly fitted without restricting her motion, and the longer tail at the back would cover her .38. Even better, it had hidden vents and a thin, high-tech insulation that-at least according to m.u.f.fin Top-would keep her comfortable in temperatures anywhere between frosted margarita and lightly toasted. Whatever that meant.

Reese handed over her backup plastic. "I won't need a bag."

As she drove back to the hotel with the windows cranked down so she wouldn't sneeze her head off from the sage and other stuff, she couldn't shake the slightly queasy feeling that she always got when she spent more than a couple of hundred dollars on something that wasn't for work, wasn't essential. It had been a long time since she'd been a street kid, but those neural pathways were set for life.

I thought you had outgrown the leather phase? asked an inner voice that wasn't her own.

"The other one isn't warm enough, and it looks like c.r.a.p," she retorted, then stopped when she realized she was arguing with herself. "s.h.i.t."

She was an independent operator. She would wear what she d.a.m.n well pleased, and come and go on her own schedule, and she wouldn't let anyone make her feel guilty about it. But although that logic sounded good, she was still going around in her head when she got back to the hotel, making it a relief to shove those problems to the back of her mind and ignore them while she focused on the job at hand. And if a whisper at the back of her brain said that things with the Nightkeepers-and Dez-had stopped being a job and become something more, she ignored that, too.

When she opened the door to his room, overheated hotel air wafted out, p.r.i.c.kling her pores. A trail of clothing started just past the bathroom: coat, then tank, then cargo pants, socks, and boots. Faint snores came from the bed, where a huge mound of spare blankets and comforters moved rhythmically, more a mountain of bedclothes than any recognizable human being. Despite Lucius's rea.s.surances, worry nagged as she hauled her purchases up from the car, using a side door so the desk clerk wouldn't give her any "no cooking in the rooms" static.

Then she stripped off her new leather, plugged in the in-room coffeemaker, and got cooking. By late afternoon, she had a feeling that poor Mr. Coffee had brewed his last pot-the upper chamber was gunked up and there was some gnarly sludge burned to the bottom of the pot-but she had about a cup of mossy-smelling syrup that, when she tried it, actually didn't taste all that bad. More, it made her head spin and sparked warm liquid shimmers low in her belly.

"Whoa. Potent stuff." Weaving a little, she left her room and headed down the hall. She hesitated for a second at Dez's door. Then she crossed her fingers, sent a small, wordless prayer to whatever higher power might be listening, and let herself into his room.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

On one level, Dez knew he was dreaming, that his mind was rebooting as his body healed and his magic rebounded. On another level, though, he was twenty-one again, and more jittery than he'd expected to be as he pushed through the door to the p.a.w.nshop a couple of blocks down from his and Reese's apartment.

He relaxed-some, anyway-when he saw he had timed it right: Thin-faced, cadaverous Zeke was leaning on the gla.s.s display counter and there was no sign of Afternoon Bob, who couldn't keep a secret for s.h.i.t.

"Hey." Zeke grinned, showing a glinting gold incisor that narrowed to a point, tagging him as a former Cobra, one of the lucky few who had gotten out and been bada.s.s enough-and useful enough-to not wind up dead in the process. "Got something good for me?"

He had been on the receiving end of a couple of Dez's recent jobs, which was pretty much glorified messengering of merchandise from point A to B, cash from B to A. Reese called it laundering-she had been getting tighter and tighter about that stuff alongside worrying about Hood's getting out of jail. But the way Dez saw it, he had a plan for Hood, and the transfers weren't hurting anybody-they were bringing high-value stuff into the neighborhood, and the jobs were low-risk for top-notch pay.

He shook his head, playing it casual. "I'm not selling today. I was thinking about buying something."

"Ah." Zeke got his "I smell a profit" look. "Something like this?" He tapped the case under his scrawny elbows, where the higher-end jewelry lived. His finger landed right over the snake ring Reese had been drooling over the other week.

Dez had taken a good look at it, thinking he would find something similar-or, better yet, have it made-when the time came. But that had been before the storm. That was how he had started thinking of his life, as before or after the storm, because things had sure as s.h.i.t changed for him that night. He hadn't just kicked Keban's a.s.s, he had gotten a taste of the magic. Afterward, the dreams and restlessness had quit and he had started gaining the bulk of a Nightkeeper male, along with a warrior's confidence and ambition. It was all part of the maturation process, he knew . . . but Reese didn't want to believe it. She kept trying to reel him in and make him back into the guy he'd been before. Which so wasn't happening.

He dipped into his pocket to touch the smooth, warm bit of carved stone he'd won from Keban, the one the winikin had said would help him reach his full magical potential. He hadn't been able to work any of the spells yet, but he would do whatever it took to gain control of the lightning . . . and his first real taste of that power had come to him while he was kissing Reese.

Thus, the ring.

Zeke modeled it on his spindly index finger. "This is the one, right?"

"Yeah," Dez said. "That's the one." He pulled out a fat wad of cash and handed it over. "This do it?" It wasn't that far short of the ask. No point in negotiating when Zeke had seen the way she looked at it.

The p.a.w.nbroker boxed the ring up nice and handed it over, and Dez slipped it into his pocket, where it banged up against the statuette. "Keep your lips zipped on this one, okay?" He wasn't sure how he was going to give it to her, or when. Or even what he really wanted it to mean, besides "I want to get laid."

Zeke pantomimed a zipping motion, somehow managing to make it obscene. Dez just rolled his eyes and headed for the street.

The dream partway dissolved, leaving Dez swimming in the memory of the calculating b.a.s.t.a.r.d he had become under the star demon's influence. He braced himself, knowing there was more-there always was when Anntah sent the dreams.

Sure enough, images started forming around him once more. Only this nightmare wasn't anything like the others.

He was his present self, wearing army surplus and carrying an autopistol on one side, knife on the other, but as he stepped out onto the street, the neighborhood was the way it had been back then: grimy streets lined with jacked-up cars, dated stores, and minimal foot traffic, like now-Dez had been plugged into then-Dez's world. He looked around, gut clenching. What the h.e.l.l am I supposed to do now? he asked inwardly, but didn't get jack from his spirit guide. So he started walking, heading toward the apartment he and Reese had shared, thinking that maybe he was supposed to find his younger self and kick some sense into- He was caught flat-footed when luminous green flashed from the shadows of a nearby alley, and gunfire erupted.

Makol!

There were screams and scurries as the other street rats made themselves scarce. Dez, though, bared his teeth, pivoted and dove, putting himself behind a parked car as he pulled his pistol and snapped off a burst of return fire. Adrenaline surged through him; his warrior's talent came on line, sharpening his focus and blunting everything but the fight.

The makol fanned out and took cover, still shooting-four big guys with filed-sharp teeth, wearing street clothes and a gang swagger, their eyes glowing eerie green. Then four more of the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds came out of a second alley behind Dez's position, getting the d.a.m.ned drop on him.

"s.h.i.t!" Throwing himself flat as they opened fire, he rolled, got to the back of the car and came up blasting.

He knocked down two of the green-eyed b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, but didn't dare break cover to finish them off. Bullets slammed into the car, bursting the windows and ricocheting. He nailed two more, but there were too d.a.m.n many of them. Panic stirred at the realization that he wasn't wearing an armband, couldn't call for backup. Worse, the makol were spreading out, circling like nasty sharks.

When the air changed behind him, he spun, leading with his pistol. And froze, his heart thudding at the sight of amber-whiskey eyes and sleek, dark hair. "Reese."

She nudged his gun away. "Didn't mean to startle you. What, did you forget the plan? Sorry I'm late. Those guys took longer than I expected." She jerked a thumb over her shoulder where dark, greasy ash piles marked where she had already reduced four makol to dust.

As the remaining makol opened with a renewed barrage, she dropped back down beside him, pressing close, so they were touching from shoulder to hip. She was wearing full combat gear and packing extra clips, two of which she tucked in his belt as naturally as breathing. Like him, she was now-Reese in then-Reese's milieu-her face honed here, softened there, her hair copper-streaked and sa.s.sy. But there were no shadows of hidden hurt in her eyes, none of the wariness that said she was just waiting for him to revert. More, when she b.u.mped up against him, his body recognized hers with a soul-deep sense of rightness, a shimmer of connection that made him feel for a split second like they were sharing head-s.p.a.ce, that he could see through her eyes and she through his.

Then she shifted away from him, lips thinning as she scanned the situation. "You ready to finish this?"

For a second he just stared as the realization hammered home: In the dream, they were the couple they could have been. He could dimly sense their history-how they had worked their way up and out, she as a cop, he as a real estate rainmaker. And how, when the call had come to reunite at Skywatch, there hadn't been a question of her staying behind. She was his mate, and they were a team. He hadn't spent a decade lost and alone, spiraling down into a black h.e.l.l of his own creation. And he was free to love her, be with her, fight alongside her. Which was how he knew it was a dream.

The image wavered, but he reached for it, clung to it as his dream-self said, "h.e.l.l, yeah. Let's do this," and they came up firing as one.

Reese hesitated at Dez's bedside, feeling hotter than the heated air in the room. Her head might be fuzzy with the effects of having tasted the syrup, but she was with-it enough to know that she was going to have to excavate him from the mountain of bedclothes in order to get the medicine into him.

And, yes, that was his underwear over there on the floor.

"You can do this," she told herself. "It's no big deal." But the heavy throb of her pulse said otherwise.

As she pulled off a couple of layers of bedclothes, she wasn't sure how much of the burn that suddenly fired in her blood was her inner teenager looking for closure and how much was a flat-out hormonal reaction to the man he had become-sleek, predatory, and dangerous. Then there was the magic-she had told herself it wouldn't be a big deal, but it was. Her skin still tingled from the shield spell he'd used to save her life the day before, warning her that she hadn't outgrown her rescue fantasies, after all.

"You know you can't trust him," she reminded herself.

He was lying on his side facing the door, angled diagonally across the bed, and he didn't even twitch when she pulled back the sheet, baring his upper body. She didn't let herself gasp-at least she didn't think she did. The only thing she knew for sure was that she was staring at an acre or two of smooth golden skin stretched over a relief map of muscle and bone.

He. Was. Magnificent.

His face was fierce even in sleep, lines drawn between his brows as though he glared through closed eyelids. His mouth was a flat line, his jaw an aggressive jut below the long, hooked nose, wide-set eyes, and high cheekbones. Before, his lashes had been thick and full; now his eyelids were bare, turning him into something strange and primal. Back in the day, she had a.s.sumed he had started shaving his head to look tougher, and it had worked. Now, she wondered whether it had been a sign of his magic waking up, an impulse he hadn't fully understood at the time.

She touched his shoulder, intending to shake him, but then just let her fingers rest there. His skin was warm satin, his muscles living stone that poured across his wide shoulders and rippled down his abdomen to disappear beneath the sheet, temping her to picture the rest of him, muscle-etched, golden, and entirely smooth to the touch.

Reese, who waxed herself ruthlessly bare, felt a little envious . . . and a whole lot turned on, her insides gone molten, her skin dampening from more than the room's near-tropical heat, and-And you're stoned, she thought on a slow-moving churn of logic. Or high, or something. The antidote had put her in a major state. Her heart thudded and desire raced through her veins, making the past and future seem so much less important than that precise moment in time, and the way her skin looked against his as she touched him, stroking his shoulder, his arm, then trailing down to- Bad idea. She pulled back, inhaling a shuddering breath that did nothing to calm the churn of heat and nerves. She should leave the syrup and go, get out while she could, clear her head. He could drink the d.a.m.n stuff when he finally woke up. Except that Lucius didn't know how long that would take; Keban was out there on the loose; another village had disappeared; the meteor shower was two days away, the solstice ten . . . and the Nightkeepers needed her help to get their Triad mage back and make sure he didn't have a hidden agenda.

The heat amped a notch at the realization that she might be in over her head, out of her league, but she was doing something, d.a.m.n it. She wasn't just making phone calls and tracking down last knowns. The realization, like the leather jacket back in her room, made her feel more alive than she had since she stopped nabbing bail jumpers. Back then, she had been saving her own piece of the world; now she had a chance to help save the whole d.a.m.n thing. The blood beat beneath her skin with a mix of nerves and euphoria, a c.o.c.ktail she had once needed like a drug.

Warning signals went off in her brain, but they were drowned out by the knowledge that she was doing the right thing here. And that for a change-maybe for the first time ever-she had the ability to fix what ailed big, bada.s.s Snake Mendez.

"Okay, slick." She stopped stroking him, shook him instead. "Time to wake up."

No response. He was out cold.

After a couple of more tries, she hitched a hip onto the bed. Ignoring the way the room spun around her just as much as she was ignoring the little voice inside her that said this was a really bad idea, she leaned over him, touched a fingertip to the thick syrup, and stroked it onto his tongue. Then she rubbed his throat, which rippled beneath her touch-smoothly, sinuously-as he licked his lips.

She stared at his mouth, transfixed. His heat surrounded her, making her skin p.r.i.c.kle, and she suddenly felt like a voyeur in her own body, watching her hands and his mouth as she repeated the process a second time. And a third. The fourth time, he swallowed on his own, and she thought he might have been breathing a little faster than before. She definitely was. The room wasn't spinning anymore; it was throbbing. And she was in serious trouble. In some corner of her mind, two words whispered: s.e.x magic.

She had read up on it back at Skywatch, had felt the way the air shifted around the mated couples when they shared a look, a touch. And now she felt it in the way the air vibrated, the fine tingles that ran along her skin, and how suddenly nothing mattered more than touching him. She wanted to run her hands over him, wanted him inside her with a ferociousness that couldn't be anything but a magic-driven compulsion.

She told herself to leave.

She leaned closer instead.

"Dez." When her voice cracked, she swallowed and tried again. "Dez, can you hear me?"

He groaned and shifted, rolling partway onto his back, closer to the center of the wide mattress. His thick erection was the center pole of an impressive tent; it drew her eyes, made her want to touch, taste. There was no thought process anymore, no real logic, only the magnetism that drew her onward, made her keep going. She got onto the mattress and knelt beside him, dipped two fingers into the syrup, and touched his lips. When he opened for her, the breath went thin in her lungs, and when he suckled, a hot wash of pleasure suffused her, leaving her tingling and wanting more.

Dimly, she was aware that she was doing exactly what she had sworn not to do, but she didn't care. She was a freelancer, an independent who didn't answer to anybody.

"Dez?" This time his name was little more than a whisper.

Finally, he opened his eyes, which were pale and luminous. "Reese." The word was a low rumble that seemed to come from the depths of the sensual storm raging inside her. "You're really here."

Relief had her smile going crooked. "Yeah. I'm here."

He searched her face. "Is it now or then?"

Not sure how to answer that, she eased over him, pressed the cup to his lower lip. "Drink this. It'll help bring you back the rest of the way."

He drank and she stared, transfixed by the rhythmic working of his jaw and throat, the bunch and flow of the muscles in his arm when he steadied the cup, the striking contrast of the black glyphs and dark blue-green cuffs against his smooth, golden skin. Then the cup was gone, thudding on the rug as he let it fall so he could wrap his hand around her neck and draw her closer.

His eyes were locked on hers, his expression open and heartbreakingly vulnerable. But instead of speaking, he closed the last breath of distance between them. And kissed her.

Oh, G.o.d. He kissed her.

He tasted of the syrup, rich and intoxicating. His lips were firm, sleek, and devastating as they moved over hers, his tongue a fascinating slide of heat and texture. His body felt like sin incarnate, all hard muscles and that smooth, warm skin sliding against her as he curled an arm around her and caught her up against his body. His very naked, very aroused body. The kiss was deep and carnal, a full-on press of lips and tongue, heat and madness. The sensations blanked out everything but the taste and feel of him, the rippling shocks unleashed by the press of his lips and the slide of his tongue.

She didn't trust his motives, didn't trust him. But she wanted him more than she wanted her next breath.

Run! said the practical, straitlaced, boring Reese Montana who had spent the past year wearing matchy-matchy suits and finding people for clients who probably could have managed the job with twenty bucks and a couple of Google searches. But the other side of her, the side that had just spent a month's rent on black leather, knew d.a.m.n well they were both drunk and didn't give a s.h.i.t, so she stayed put.

And kissed him back.

Dez was entirely aware that he wasn't dreaming anymore. He was really holding now-Reese, really kissing her and sliding a hand beneath her shirt to find the warm curve of a breast, the peak of a nipple. All that was happening in the here and now, in a hotel room somewhere in northern New Mex. But the dream stayed with him, sending s.e.x magic to race through his body and charge the air around them.

The dream and the magic bore the touch of the G.o.ds; the woman in his arms felt like an angel and tasted like a prayer. She filled the emptiness inside him, the hollow ache of having been alone for so long. She wasn't the woman he'd dreamed of, the one he'd never hurt or betrayed. Yet somehow she was that woman-she had come after him and fought at his side, and now was right there in his bed, trying to heal him, to fix him.

Tightening his arms around her, he deepened the kiss, trying to tell her what that meant to him when he wasn't really sure himself. Logic said that if he truly cared for her he would turn her loose. Because if he couldn't take out Keban and the artifacts before the solstice, he would have to deal with the prophecy he'd spent half a lifetime running away from. Desire, though, didn't give a s.h.i.t about logic when lightning raced in his veins and a woman-the woman, the only one there had ever been for him-arched in his arms, pressing against him and kissing him back with wild abandon. A decade ago, he had been able to make himself stay away from her until the time was right, only it never had been. Now, he didn't give a s.h.i.t about the timing or whether it was right or wrong. He wanted her, here and now.

His honor was gone, his self-control out the window. She filled up the emptiness, sharpened the world around him, made him crazy. He wanted her, wanted to fill her, possess her, make her his own. Take her. Take her.

His blood thudded heavily in his veins as he kissed up alongside her jaw to her ear, then took her mouth again. She moaned, bit his chin, his jaw, then found his mouth again as she curled her calf around the back of his knee and moved her hips in a long, sinuous roll that left him bucking and shuddering against her.

The power of her response filled him, consumed him, had him rearing up and over her, and covering her body with his. Lightning arced as they met openmouthed in a hot clash of lips, tongue, and teeth that flashed heat to need, and from there to an absolute requirement: He had to have her like he had to have his next breath, the next beat of his heart.

And deep in his soul, a soft voice whispered: Mine.

Reese was out of her mind, out of control, and she didn't care. It felt so good to let go. Her better sense was long gone, her body turning to flames as she willingly lost herself. Dez was a furnace, an inferno; heat pumped off him in waves while she kissed him openmouthed and touched him along the lines of his sides, the dips at his hips and flanks. Groaning, he pressed into her, tormenting her with his thick length and the barrier of her clothing, cupping her a.s.s and pressing at the juncture, rubbing through the heavy cloth to make her moan and pant into his mouth.

Unable to stand the torture, she surged up and over, rolling them so he was on his back. He yanked off her shirt, then her bra, and she rolled away to deal with her too-heavy combat pants, boots, socks, all of it, so when she came back to him they were skin on skin, bare to bare, her legs wrapping around one of his, holding them both in place.

He cupped her breast, making the room spin as he kissed her. He surrounded her, took her under, drowning her in layers of sensation as he stroked her body, cupped her naked a.s.s, slipped a finger beneath and groaned at the back of his throat. Sensations blasting through her, she skimmed a shaking hand across the hard bud of a masculine nipple, enjoying the indrawn hiss of his breath, the way his hands went still for a second. Then he shuddered as she caressed his taut belly, made a wide, teasing detour, and then trailed her fingers across the faint wrinkles surrounding his prodigious sac, which was drawn tightly up in excitement and seemed to come alive beneath her touch.

"Yes," he hissed against her mouth, gripping her hip, her shoulder, then digging his fingers into her hair to drag her mouth up to his for a fierce, wild kiss that tasted of sage and made her head spin. "G.o.ds, yes."

He was hugely thick where she wrapped her hand around him, long from base to tip, where he was wide and blunt, and pressed eagerly into her hand. She curved her fingers around him, felt a thrill when she couldn't completely enclose him, another when he groaned and met her stroke with a jerky, desperate thrust.

There was slick wetness on her fingers, on her skin, between her legs where she gripped his thigh, rode it. She was feverish, her heart pounding with the desperation to take him inside her. There was no need for a condom; the magi used sterilization spells and didn't carry disease. And, despite the faint pinch beneath her heart, there was no need to wait, no reason to go slow.

At his urging she parted for him, arched into his touch as he cupped her, his hand gliding across where she, too, was sleekly bare. He pressed his forehead to her, his breath an excited rasp. "f.u.c.k, that's s.e.xy."

Then he slid a finger inside her, worked her with his thumb and sent her cartwheeling. Light flared behind her eyelids as a hard, hot o.r.g.a.s.m barreled through her, paralyzing her for a moment with its raging intensity. She bowed up into him and rode out the pleasure that washed through her as he kissed her, held her, worked her, the whole time whispering dark, earthy curses that became love words in his rasping voice.

Every inch of her was sensitized to the fluid slide of skin on skin as she rose over him. She spread her legs wide to straddle him, the move changing the sensations and sending new urgency licking through her. Then she leaned in so they were nose to nose as she reached down to touch him, stroke him, center him at the entrance to her body. He let her have the moment, his hands gently kneading her hips, his eyes steady on hers, warm in the afternoon sunlight, then clouding as she eased him inside. The blunt head of his c.o.c.k stretched and filled her, setting off chain reactions that began at her wet clasp and flared outward. The tightness eased as she moved down his shaft, then returned when he was fully seated within her.

They fit together tightly, with a seamlessness that brought a p.r.i.c.kle of tears, a churn of emotion that she fought back. This was real. It was magic.

She closed her eyes and let her head fall back, then began to move her hips gently, experimentally. Heat flared through her, ramping higher as he slid his hands to her waist, up to her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. A long breath shuddered out of her and she rocked against him.

"Fuuuck." As if unable to stay still any longer, he jackknifed up, wrapping his arms around her and kissing her hard and hot as he slid them, still intimately connected, to the edge of the mattress. He got one leg down, curled the other around behind her, and surged into her, his strong grip counterpointing the thrust. And again.