“You’re doing this?” I demanded with a glance at Cale. I heard the note of awe in my voice but couldn’t contain it. There had always been rumors that a few nymphs had survived into the modern age, but I’d assumed they were just stories. I’d never met a sprite. Hell, I’d never met anyoneelsewho’d ever met one. “You did this in Memphis too, didn’t you? You’re a water nymph.”
“Only half. On my mother’s side.” He shrugged, on the edge of my vision. “And we prefer to be called elementals.”
Of course they did. Any non-human species that made it into the twenty-first century in spite of the mortal onslaught had the right to a rebrand. I guess I could call myself “life-challenged.” But that made me sound as if I were struggling to exist, which couldn’t be further from the truth.
I was struggling to move on.
“Shouldn’t you be prancing around a waterfall somewhere in Europe, or…I don’t know…playing the pan flute, or some shit like that?”
Murphy huffed. “Sorry, pan flutes went out with togas and laurel wreaths. I do play a little acoustic guitar, though, when the mood strikes. Other than that, I’m just your friendly neighborhood deep sea diver.”
“Come on, Cale, you’re selling yourself short,” Lori purred at him from across the cargo hold. “You’re much more than that.”
“And you’re much less.” His voice dripped with venomous anger; clearly he hadn’t wanted her to tell me about his species. “Why don’t you go lap up some adolescent hormones and leave the real work to the big boys and girls?”
“Don’t mind if I do…” Lorelei’s gaze settled on me with an almost physical weight. She no longer seemed aware of the flashlights shining in her eyes or the drenching rain. Her lips parted. Her tongue flicked between them, like a snake scenting the air. Her eyes rolled back for a second, pale violet irises all but disappearing. Then they found me again, and I blinked, trying to clear away the sudden fog of confusion and make sense of what she’d been saying.
Or had Murphy been talking? I couldn’t quite remember.
“Lorelei.Stop,” he snapped. “Lex? You still with me?” His voice flowed over my skin like a silken caress. I shuddered, and the sound of rain pounding on the fuselage faded into the background. As did the cold and most of the pain in my arm. I felt cushioned from the world, suddenly, as if I were separated from everything around me by a thick layer of…nothing. Of warm, denser-than-normal air.
My gaze slid from Lorelei to Murphy, and I was positive I’d find him standing right next to me, his body heat washing over me, the source of the sudden tantalizing warmth. But he was still several feet away. So where had that delicious heat come from? Why could I feel him, warm, and soothing, and irresistible, despite the cold and the rain?
My eyes strained against the shadows to see him better. “I’m still with you,” I said, mildly surprised by the dazed quality of my own voice.Damnwas I with him… I was right there with his eyes, and his voice, and that chest I had run my hands over only minutes earlier. And those incredibly strong legs. And his nice, tight…
“Focus, Lex.” Murphy’s words cut through my thoughts, but instead of clearing away the fog, they thickened it. The metal walls around me began to blur. The cold, the rain, and the succubus were all but forgotten. His voice was the only thing clear or substantial. The only thing I could hear or feel. The only thingreal.
“You can block her out if you concentrate,” he said, and while I heard the cadence of his speech and felt his voice dance along my nerve endings like metaphysical foreplay, his actual meaning didn’t penetrate.
Block her out of what? I didn’t give a damn about Lorelei.Murphywas my problem now. He also happened to be the solution…
“You can feel him, can’t you?” the succubus said, her words slurring. Mildly surprised, I glanced at her. Was shedrunk?“Touch him, Alexandra. Put your hand in his.”
I reached toward Murphy with my non-gun hand and only dimly realized that should have hurt my injured arm. Only long-term habit kept the pistol in my grip as my right hand—still holding the flashlight—swung toward him, highlighting each angle of his face, each plane defined beneath layers of denim and cotton.
“Touch his face,” Lorelei crooned. “Touch his hair. Everything will be okay once you touch him.”
Murphy’s boots splashed in the rapidly accumulating water as he stepped farther away from us both. “No!” he shouted.
Yes!Lorelei was a goddamngenius!She was right. Everything would be better if I could just reach Murphy. If I could run my hands beneath his sweater, and over the jeans hugging the curve of his ass, the line of his thigh. If I could just touch him.Tastehim…
“He wants you to.” She was chanting now, in a soft, sing-song voice, deep and hoarse, yet steady enough to enthrall. “Heneedsyou to touch him.”
“Lorelei…” he snapped, his voice a bitter warning for… For something I couldn’t quite focus on.
I stumbled toward Murphy, and that single motion sent water rushing over the top of my boot. My foot was suddenly drenched with freezing rain. The shock woke me up, reminding me that my feet were still firmly planted on the cold, wet ground, and that my thoughts should be down here too.
Fear clawed through my mental fog, and I clung to it desperately because it seemed to clear my head. What was I doing? Why was my gun hanging limp in my hand? Why had I taken my eye off the succubus? Why was Murphy watching me in horror?
He tore his gaze from me to glare at the succubus, who was closer now. She’d stepped out from under the hole in the roof, though I couldn’t remember actually seeing her move. “Let her go, Lorelei.”
“Nooooo, she’s yummy,” the succubus moaned, licking her lips seductively, her eyes half-closed, yet still focused on me.
“Lori, I don’t want to hurt you.” Murphy’s voice was low and dangerous. “You know I don’t. But if you don’t let her goright now, I won’t have any other choice.”
“You do what you gotta do, sugar.” Her fatalistic smile shined through the mental haze rapidly re-enveloping me. “I’ll do the same.”
Murphy’s hair glowed golden in the glare from my flashlight. Rain pounded on the roof of the plane, but I scarcely noticed. All I could think about was his hands on me. Mine on him. Standing in the rain, warm in spite of the temperature and the season…
