The Unlikeable Demon Hunter (Nava Katz #1)(17)

I hadn’t been able to scope out his body in detail on our previous two encounters, but now, under proper lighting, I could tell he’d be nicely cut under that sweater that molded to him like a second skin. Underwear model nice and not the low rent, flyer-insert kind either. One of those glorious torsos caught in haunting black and white by Herb Ritts, the stark white of his briefs throwing his generous package into sharp relief.

Then there was his face. If it hadn’t been for the slight bent of his nose, indicating it had been broken, his South Asian beauty would have been too painful and/or depressing to look at. Killer cheekbones, firm chin, gorgeous brown skin and lips that were created to do bad, bad, wonderful things. It was going to be a crime against humanity to kill him.

I leaned in toward the slight breeze drifting in through my open window, refusing to fan myself in front of him.

He sat there under my scrutiny, totally comfortable. A sign of excess confidence and further proof of evil. Though the more I stared at him, the more I got a niggling feeling that I knew him.

“Did we ever…” I made a fist and pumped away in a back and forth motion.

Amusement lit his amber eyes. “I was the lead singer of Fugue State Five.” He smirked, saying the words as if obviously I’d heard of them. Fair enough.

Rohan Mitra had been the broody frontman whose so sensitive lyrics and rough growl singing voice induced mass hysteria at concerts world-wide. It was rumored he’d averted an oil crisis with a personal visit to a Sheik’s daughter. Watching the beautiful bastard now, I believed it.

“Oh my God!” I squealed. “Your mom is Maya Mitra. I love her!”

“My mom.” The smirk vanished.

The words tripped out of my mouth, I was so psyched to be one degree of separation away from this woman. “Punk rock Indian Jewish chick who blew every stereotype out of the water in her rise to hottest music producer in the biz? You get to be related to her?!” I bounced on the bed in sheer excitement, clapping a hand over my protesting boobs.

“And she to me,” he said dryly.

“Whatever.” I studied him. When Rohan had first gotten famous, he’d been an extremely pretty sixteen-year-old, all long limbs, smoldering doe eyes, and his trademark platinum blond hair falling into his face, but from his tightly muscled body to his five o’clock shadow, that boy was long gone. He seemed… harder. Don’t go there, honey. Thankfully his standard issue wear of Vans, black skinny jeans, and vintage-looking weird graphic T-shirts were no longer a part of his repertoire.

Even Leo, his super fan, might have needed time to make the connection between his past and present selves.

I raked an approving glance over his vastly improved fashion sense, enjoying the view from the top of his fitted sweater, along his tailored black dress pants, and down to the tips of his Italian footwear. His leather jacket was tossed on my windowsill. “I didn’t recognize you without the eyeliner and glaring dye job, Rohan.”

He tipped his head. “Yeah. Thrilled that look is immortalized for all time. Now, come on.”

“Come on and what?”

“Show me your power.” His hand snaked out and caught my wrist, pressing his palm against mine. Holding me in a barely contained show of strength.

“Death wish, much? I showed you in the backyard.”

“Barely even a tease.” He drawled the words.

I meant to pull away but I got my directions mixed up and pushed back against the warmth of his skin. “I will fire up. I’m warning you.”

Rohan leaned in. “Do it.” His eyes flared and I caught my bottom lip between my teeth.

Then some last iota of common sense–and self-preservation–raised its hand. I jerked away from him. If he was a demon, I should have killed him six times over by now. What the hell was I doing? “You still haven’t convinced me that you’re not a demon,” I said, giving the evil spawn another chance for reasons I didn’t want to examine too closely. “Fame doesn’t preclude that. Nor does having a super cool mom.”

“That doesn’t, but this does.” He held up his pinky finger, showing me the same gold ring as mine, with the same engraved hamsa and blue sapphire iris, which it turns out, was standard issue. And here I’d been hoping for a succession of property-stamping jewelry as I rose through the hunter ranks.

I fell back against my headboard. “You’re part of Demon Club. Fuck. Me.”

Rohan oogled me. “I won’t take that off the table yet.” He propped his chin on his hands on the top of the chair.

I cocked an eyebrow at him. “Did you just put me on a table?”

“More invoked a proverbial table and a conditional ‘yet.’ The ‘yet’ is an important component of this potential event,” he said.

You know what else was an important component? The presumptuous jerk still having attached balls for our proverbial fuck.

“I used to write fanfic about Fugue State Five,” I said in a conversational tone.

Lookie lookie. Return of the amused smirk. “How was I?” he asked.

I shrugged, examining my chipped nail polish. “No clue. I wrote self-insert fanfic about the rest of your band. Zack, your keyboardist was astounding.” I drawled that last word so he’d get the full implication.

“My keyboardist?” Rohan’s smugness was R.I.P. “But he’s gay.”