Eleventh Grave in Moonlight (Charley Davidson #11)(59)

Reyes handed me a sandwich.

I took a bite. “Peanut butter and jelly?”

“We have places to be.”

“Another lesson?”

“More or less.”

He was really pushing the lesson thing today. He took a bite of his own sandwich as I continued.

“So, yeah, car crusher. You don’t live through that. No amount of stitches will put me back together.”

Reyes-Wan listened as he ate but didn’t offer an explanation.

I took another bite and decided to talk with my mouth full. “I get that the supernatural side won’t die. Everyone has a soul.”

That got his attention. He shot me a quick glance, then went back to his sandwich and checking the most recent delivery invoices.

“Or not. Either way, my body will not survive.” I swallowed and thought about the alternative. “At least, it had better not.” When he didn’t say anything again, panic rose in my chest. “Right? I would die. I do not, in any way, shape, or form, want to be a living pile of hamburger. And I don’t want to be a zombie. Have you seen their skin? Not even sunscreen would help with that.”

Silence. I hopped down off the counter and walked over to him. “Roda?” I asked, combining his name with Yoda’s. He didn’t find my sense of humor amusing. It happened.

He spoke at last. “It doesn’t work that way. Not for us.”

He turned to talk to Sammy as he walked into the kitchen again. Sammy had learned long ago not to put much stock in our conversations. He either thought we were bat shit or he didn’t give a rat’s ass one way or another.

And who came up with the animals for these euphemisms, anyway? Why bat shit? Why not cow shit or grasshopper shit? And why don’t we give a rat’s ass as opposed to a hamster’s ass?

My point being, I could pretty much say anything in front of Sammy. He took it all in stride. The angel standing beside the walk-in freezer, however, would just have to deal.

“But I’m still human, yes? I was born a human.”

“Yeah,” he said to him, completely ignoring me. “Just keep an eye on the driver.”

“You got it,” Sammy said, noting my indignation with a barely suppressed grin “What are you going to do?”

Reyes looked down at me at last. “We’re going to the beach.”

Suh-weet.

As Reyes took my hand and led me out, Sammy shook his head again. Probably because we didn’t have any beaches in Albuquerque. Not real ones, anyway.

The lunch crowd was vast as usual, but with Dr. Feel Good being gone so much lately, the demographics had shifted from a large percentage of women to some actual men. Or so I’d thought.

We stepped out, and the noise level dropped. A couple of women got on their phones, saying stuff like, “He’s here today,” and, “Get over here, stat.” Still more women either texted or took his picture with their phones. He was somewhat of an Internet sensation, and he was either oblivious or just didn’t care. It was fun to watch, all the while knowing he’d be going to bed with me at night.

Delight shuddered through me. Not a gloating delight. More of a delight of disbelief. If someone would have told me two years ago I’d be spending my nights with this man … well, I might have believed them, but only because one look at him and I would have offered my services. But to be spending those nights with him in a marital capacity? Priceless.

He walked to the men’s restroom and dragged me inside.

“Hey, mister,” I said, playing coy. I batted my lashes and gave him my most innocent look. “I’m not supposed to talk to strangers. Or follow grown men into restrooms. What would my daddy say?”

He pulled me against his chest, shoved a hand into my hair, and devoured my mouth with a kiss that should have been X-rated.

As soon as Donnie, our bartender, finished making pee-pee, he left without washing his hands. I could only hope the alcohol would sterilize them. In his defense, the kiss was rather sexual. With sexual undertones and a sexy, noir slant to it.

Reyes broke off the kiss and stared down at me. “You keep talking like that, and I’ll have to take you into a stall.”

“You romantic, you.” In truth, he left me completely breathless, and the stall sounded pretty freaking good.

“Ready?”

“For stall sex? Hell, yes.”

The grin that slipped across his face bore a strong resemblance to the one he’d worn the night he’d performed a vaginal exam with kitchen utensils. I melted. Or I started to until he took hold of me and said, “This time, I’ll steer for both of us.”

Celestial storms slammed into me and around me and through me, and then a sun brighter than I’d ever seen—and I was from New Mexico, thank you very much—blinded me. All I could see was a single shade of blue and a single shade of tan.

I cupped a hand over my eyes and kept the fingers of the other one curled in Reyes’s shirt. The image around me slowly came into focus. Actually, it was already in focus, I was just now figuring it out.

“We’re in a desert.”

Reyes nodded. He had yet to actually look at our surroundings. Instead, he chose to look at me, and I could not fathom why.

“Oh, my God, Reyes.” I turned and surveyed the area. “This is stunning.”

We were surrounded by exactly two things: a sky so blue it glowed and a desert such a rich golden red it took my breath away. My feet sank into the sand. It formed little hills around them. I reached down and sifted it through my fingers, then fell onto my knees. They sank into the warmth beneath them, too.