Doomsday Can Wait (Phoenix Chronicles, #2)(88)

"Even if Nix knew somehow, the knowledge died with him. Otherwise there'd have been a line of Nephlim on the lawn waiting to kill you."

"How. . . comforting," I said. "Still, don't you think it was weird?"

"Unfortunately, no. The majority of the evil pricks in the world are Nephilim. Serial killers, child molesters, terrorist."

"Televangelists," I muttered.

"Very funny," he said, but he wasn't laughing. Instead he stared toward the window, and he looked scared. "You have to go now."

"How do you suggest I do that?" I motioned at the door, which didn't have a knob on this side, either.

Jimmy banged his fists against it again, putting two more dents in an already dented structure.

"Summer," he shouted. "Get her the hell out!"

"Summer's a little tied up." I murmured.

Jimmy spun to face me. "You brought Sawyer?"

"Did you think I wouldn't?"

He leaned against the door, defeated again. "Lizzy, you don't know what you're doing."

But I did know. I was doing what had to be done.

I took him by the arm, led him to the bed. then sat beside him. A fine sheen of sweat had broken out all over his skin. The moon was coming, and he was fighting the change.

I leaned in, letting my breasts brush his arm as I rubbed his back, pretending at comfort. "We'll fight this together. You and me. Just like when we were kids."

"You and me against the world," he murmured.

"You and me for the world," I corrected, but he didn't seem to hear me. "Jimmy?"

He lifted his head, and his eyes held a single pinprick of red at the center. He was losing the battle. I lowered my soothing hand from his shoulders to the small of his back, continuing to rub, letting my fingertips trail across the swell of his ass. He shuddered.

"What if I make you like me?" He licked his lips, his gaze locked on the curve of my neck.

"I can take care of myself."

"Not when I'm like that." He grabbed me by the arms again, hauled me against him. "It's damnation, Lizzy. For both of us."

Perhaps. But sacrifices must be made. Damnation for us, salvation for everyone else. I was willing to take that chance.

"This darkness is a fate worse than death," he said.

"I won't leave you."

"You should kill me."

"Been there, done that, didn't take."

He let me go. "I didn't give you up then to turn you evil now."

"Why did you give me up?"

"For your own good."

Which was why I was doing this now. His good. Mine. The world's.

Jimmy closed his eyes and whispered. "You're going to break me."

I put my hand on his arm. I'm not sure what I meant to say maybe nothing, perhaps everything, but silver trickled through the windows, across his face, across mine and his eyes snapped open.

Fire flared at their center. The moon was up; Jimmy was gone.

I had to make him believe that I was too preoccupied with doing him to realize I was supposed to be helping him fight the fight. He'd drink from me; I'd drink from him and then—

I didn't want to think about that. For now, I'd just enjoy the press of his mouth, the brush of his hands. Jimmy'd always been a sexual savant. When he touched me. I melted. Couldn't help myself.

Sure. Sawyer was the best sex I'd ever had, but Sawyer was sex. Jimmy was love, childhood—all that was good and right before everything went badly wrong.

Even in the Strega's lair, when Jimmy had said and done terrible things, if he shut the hell up, turned off the lights, and touched me, it was as if we were seventeen again.

Talk about breaking someone. In Manhattan, he'd been very, very close to breaking me.

Now he was rough, hungry, that was fine. The faster he took me, the faster he'd lose control and do what I wanted him to.

I opened my mouth, welcomed his tongue, suckling it. He growled and yanked me closer, crushing my breasts to his chest, then shimmying back and forth, creating pressure and friction.

My body was twisted at an odd angle, so I swung my leg over his lap, straddling him. He was hard, no surprise, and I rode that hardness against my belly just enough to make him crazy.

He tore his lips from mine, kissing his way across my jaw, down my neck, then teasing the tips of my breasts with his tongue.

"Harder," I muttered. "More." And he grazed me with his teeth.

I yanked on his hair, and he bucked beneath me, the pressure against my now slick and swollen center both exquisite and excruciating.

The moon spilled across us; the chill silver light seemed to scald my naked skin. My fingers skated over him, my nails raking his back, his chest.

His eyes were completely red now; his fangs had lengthened. I'd accomplished what I'd set out to do, seduced him into forgetting the fight.

He flexed his hips, pressing against me, sliding just a little within. I lifted myself and let him plunge. My head fell back, and I clutched at his shoulders as I tightened around him.

"Your blood is like wine," he whispered against my breasts. "I can smell the power pulsing under your skin. What could I do with you beside me? What could we. together, become?"