But all that slid away in the face of...this.
Death. Collecting souls.
Somehow that didn’t mesh with the image she presented to the world. Sexy, pixie biker chick. Her hair was pulled up into a messy pleat his fingers itched to drive into and pull free. The memory of her silken hair running through his hands hit him hard, precipitating a very typical reaction down below. From her tousled hair, to the bee-stung pout of her lips and curvy little body, she looked about as dangerous as a wet kitten.
Appearances were deceptive, though. Last night had taught him that. Dangerous didn’t cut it. Lethal was nearer the mark.
“What... like the Grim Reaper?” he joked, trying for a smile from her pretty lips. “Aren’t you—”
“A little fat?” she cut him off with a smile, but not the one he’d hoped for. It didn’t reach her eyes. Shit. She was serious. She thought she was fat. Realizing he’d strayed into one of those female danger areas and his response could hit hard and deep, he paused and looked at her directly.
“Breathing. You’re breathing, babe.” Stepping closer, he nudged her thighs wider apart so he could ease between them. She let him, interest and growing heat stark in her eyes. Open. Honest. Not hiding anything. He loved that about her. There was no pretense or coyness. No games. He couldn’t stand games. His bitch of an ex had been all about them. “And I don’t want to hear you say you’re fat again. You’re not.”
A gentle finger hooked under her chin made her meet his eyes, and he bent his head to brush his lips against hers.
“I love your curves. And I loved feeling them pressed against me last night as I fucked you.”
He wasn’t usually crude like that. Unlike a lot of guys, Troy believed in respecting a woman and treating her like a princess. But that didn’t mean it was all rainbows and unicorns. Sometimes he wanted to wrap a woman’s…Laney’s hair around his fist to hold her still while he drove into her hard and fast.
“And I fully intend to enjoy them again.”
Her breathing caught, the little hitch accompanied by a sudden darkness in her eyes that made him want to push her back onto the picnic table and work through every one of the fantasies plaguing him since he’d woken that morning.
With a groan, he gave up resisting temptation and covered her mouth with his. Her lips were just as soft and perfect as they had been the night before, sweet and pliable as he parted them with a sweep of his tongue and drove inside to sample her mouth again. She whimpered, a sexy little sound he felt more than heard, and one that kicked his already rampant arousal into high gear.
Breathing heavily, he broke away before things could get out of hand. As much as he wanted them to, a picnic table at the side of the road wasn’t the right place. The last thing he needed was to get arrested for public indecency, especially in the company of a…what?
Resting his forehead against hers, he cupped the side of her neck in one hand. His thumb stroked her cheek gently. “So. Death, huh?”
She gave a tiny nod but didn’t pull away from the caress. Instead she closed her eyes, leaning into it. Troy’s inner caveman roared and beat his chest. She was his for the taking. He knew it as sure as he breathed air.
“Well, technically I’m a Reaper.” Her voice was soft and he got the feeling she’d never said that to anyone…normal? Someone like him who didn’t know what she was on sight. “Not the Grim Reaper. More a descendant, shall we say?”
Troy couldn’t help it, and a snort of amusement escaped. The idea of the Grim Reaper getting his sexy on was too weird, even for Liberty. “So ol’ Boney got the chance to knock boots, huh?”
The soft, musical sound of her laugh wrapped around his heart. “Yeah, no... That didn’t happen. Few bits missing for that I think.”
She pulled back to look at him. God, she was so tiny it made his heart ache. How could someone who looked so alive be Death incarnate?
“It’s more we carry a piece of him.” She tapped her temple. “In here. That’s what gets passed down.”
“We?” He couldn’t keep the curiosity out of his voice. “There are more of you?”
“Hell yeah.” She smiled indignantly, like he was a toddler who’d learned something new. It was cute so he didn’t take offense. “Whole families, all over the world. I inherited it from my grandpop.”
Families. Grandpop. The ground might as well have rocked beneath his feet as the world tilted and grew. Shit, and he’d thought the boggarts were bad. Finding out there were whole families of Reapers blew his mind.
“So, that’s what brought you to Liberty?” He slid his hand down to the back of her hips, spreading his fingers out to pull her up snuggly against the erection trapped in his pants. It was so not professional, but he didn’t care. He needed her to know how badly she affected him.
She nodded and tilted her head at the slight pressure of his fingers. He didn’t pass up the offer, as manipulated as it was, and slid his mouth along her neck to the soft spot behind her ear that made her shiver.
“Yeah. If there’s a reap to be performed nearby, I can see it. Like a line in the corner of my eye.” Her hands swept up his arms and over his shoulders to clutch at his collar, as though she needed something to hold onto. She paused, her body stiffening. “Lines. Lots of them.”
“It gets that bad? How do you see?”
He nuzzled her neck again, but she pushed him away, her expression concerned. “Shit. New lines. There are souls to be reaped. Silver...I mean human ones.”
Decoding her words took an extra half second, and then a chill ran down his spine. Reaped meant someone was about to die. More than one someone. He took a step back, the cop training forcing its way to the forefront.
“Where? How many?” More important questions to ask at the moment than who. Identity came later, after they’d stopped whatever was going to happen. If she knew someone was about to die, surely they could stop whatever caused the death.
“It doesn’t work like that. I don’t get details. But I’m violent deaths.” She slid off the table and strode toward her bike. Stones crunched underfoot. “So if it’s calling me, it means an accident or murder.”
The chill emanating from the bike matched the one that wrapped Troy in its coils. Like it watched him, judged him, and found him wanting. Very much wanting. If it had lips, it would have curled them and bared its teeth. His steps slowed. He didn’t want to get near the thing, but she strode on.
“Stop that,” she snapped, slapping the tank as though the bike were alive. Troy was very much afraid it was. “I like him, so if you scare him off, there’s gonna be a scrapyard in your immediate future. And a crusher. See how you get out of that.”
She swung her leg over the saddle and for a moment he thought he saw a swirl of something, like black robes, out of the corner of his eye. He shook his head. No way had she grown by a couple of feet and acquired a scythe. She’d said herself she was just a Reaper, not the big guy himself.
She kicked the bike into life. It roared, the sound far deeper and more animalistic than he’d expected. Hell, he didn’t know what to expect. Not from her. She grabbed the handlebars, turning the front wheel, and then paused to look at him.