“Bad habits.”
Smirking, I held a glass to her and lifted the bottle of wine. She nodded, then took over when I hadn’t bothered with the orange juice. It seems she was determined on mimosas. “I’m just too darn handsome,” I said.
Nikki laughed, and desire prickled in me. My fingers clenched on the picnic blanket as she got the drinks ready. We’d come so close to being together the other night, and I wouldn’t be able to deny myself release for much longer without risking exposing my demon. Control was something that took time—lots of time—and while I had pretty good control since residing on Earth these past few months, it wasn’t enough to be able to keep control when I came so close to claiming a woman, only to have that taken away from me. Especially when every little movement she made only increased my need for her—the way her fingers delicately traced over the line of the champagne glass stem and how her lips pursed slightly as she took a sip, her subtle pink tongue darting out to catch the droplets of liquid on her lips.
Lips that had been around the head of my cock.
Demons were territorial. Once we had our sights set on someone, if that interest was reciprocated, we didn’t want to seek someone else until we had them.
Shifting my legs, I covered my arousal.
She scoffed. “Really, tell me.”
“You want me to sully our first date by telling you my bad habits?”
“Yes, because you’re justtoo darn perfect.”She dropped her tone, and if that was meant to be an impression of my voice, it was terrible.
“Fine,” I said, accepting my drink and getting comfortable again. “I fight.”
“How do you mean?”
Lifting a shoulder, I took a gulp of my drink. Wait!This was a mimosa?Why had I been avoiding these? Probably because they sounded too girly. Damn. “As in, I fight. I like to fight. I get together with a group of guys, and we beat each other up. It gets messy.” I flexed my hands, and my knuckles cracked, remembering the feel of them collecting someone in the gut.
Her jaw tensed. “Is that legal?”
“You tell me.”
She pursed her lips and opted not to answer. “Anything else?”
“Damn, that’s not enough? Okay, apparently I eat as though I’m starving. My table manners suck.”
Nikki laughed again, and I relaxed as she did, her shoulders dropping as she brought the glass to her lips for another sip.
We talked and sometimes simply sat in silence, and the hours went by faster than I had realized. When I looked up again, the sun was getting ready to drop below the treeline, casting long shadows across the graveyard, making the trees in the distance appear to reach toward us, ready to drag us into their depths.
“We should get going,” Nikki said.
Reluctantly, I agreed. This was about her anyway and wanting to spend this time with her dad, despite him being six feet under, although I felt I had taken up all of her attention. But maybe that’s what she wanted. After we had packed up, Nikki stood andmoved around the front of the grave, trailing her fingers along the stone as she stepped around the border of the grave.
I followed, keen to stay close to her and curious about what she’d get engraved on the gravestone of someone who meant the world to her.
But once I saw it, the air was punched from my lungs. I coughed, trying to regain myself. My stomach might as well have been filling with lead, and the picnic basket suddenly seemed heavier than it did a moment ago. Or was it my arms that were heavier?
No. It was guilt.
Guilt was heavy on my shoulders, in my gut, and running through my veins.
Guilt.
Because I knew that man, although by a different name.
I knew the face in that little oval photo embedded in the stone.
The man she loved so much, the man whose justice she was fighting for. I knew him.
Ah, fuck.
I had tortured Nikki’s father in Hell.
