InsistentHunger (27 page)

“So you admit that he might come for you.” Reaching out,
Brady caught her hand and held it. Paige wanted to pull away. She wanted to
make this easier on Brady by maintaining some sort of emotional distance.
Instead, she curled her fingers around Brady’s hand and held on.

“No he won’t. Trust me. Hunter is going to take care of
Hunter and that means he’s not going to walk into a house full of demons. I
might like to fantasize about a last-minute rescue, but fantasies rarely turn
into reality. So do you have another bright idea?”

“She might….” He stopped and frowned.

“If the ‘she’ in question is Little Miss Fruitcake upstairs,
rescue will not be coming from that direction,” Paige said sadly. “You’re
ignoring the obvious solution here, Brady.”

“No, I’m ignoring the really bad solution. I’m ignoring the
solution that doesn’t make any sense. I’m ignoring the solution that she’s
trying to force me to make.” Brady looked angry now. Ah, so he did understand
her plan. He wasn’t stupid, but with the injuries, Paige wasn’t sure he could
think clearly enough to understand how bitch-lady set them up for this.

“It’s her fault, not yours,” Paige said softly. She didn’t
want Brady to blame himself for taking the only solution.

Brady held her hand tighter. “I will not turn on you. I
don’t give a shit what she thinks about me or my humanity. You’re the one I
turned to for help and you’re the one who has stood by me. She can go to hell
or send me to hell or do whatever she’s going to do, but I won’t turn on you.”
He had a fierceness to his voice that Paige hadn’t expected, but reality was
going to force a choice sooner rather than later.

“Thank you for that, but realistically this is not going to
save me. If anything, you’re offering to die and then leave me for Little Miss
Psycho-bitch to torture to death. If I’m really lucky, she might turn me into a
demon,” Paige pointed out.

“No, she wouldn’t.” Brady said that like he knew it for
fact.

For a second, Paige felt the flash of irrational offense.
“What? You think I’m not good enough to be a demon?” Paige rubbed her hand over
her face. “God, my life has gotten weird when I actually have cause to ask that
question.”

Brady pulled her other hand closer and studied the fingers
for a long time before he kissed them gently. “I think that if she invited a
demon into you, your personality would pretty much override the demon. Then
she’d be left with a superstrong, really cranky, demonic version of you. She’s
not suicidal, so that’s not going to happen.” Admiration filled Brady’s smile.

“Are you so sure that I wouldn’t turn into one of those
mindless guard dogs outside?”

He gave a little huff. “Yeah, I’m sure. I have no idea why
I’m sure, but I’m sure. Put a demon in Paige Silver and you’re just going to
get a demonic Paige Silver.”

“Do you mean the way you’re really just a demonic Brady
Ross?” she asked. Instead of protesting the idea, Brady seemed to think about
it for a while.

“Maybe.” Brady still held her hand and she sat on the edge
of the bed and tried to ignore desire running up and down her arm on little
spider feet.

“So according to your theory, I have a choice between dying
in order to save my partner or getting tortured to death by Little Miss
Psychotic. And given those two choices, I’m picking door number one,” she said
as firmly as she could.

Her stomach still lurched a little at the idea of dying at
all, but she wouldn’t pull Brady down with her—not if she had a choice.
Besides, the idea of lying down next to Brady and letting him absorb her life
was a whole lot better than getting tortured by the woman upstairs. After they’d
had sex, Brady had been a lot more coherent, so if he took all her life force,
that should power-charge him. If not, she wouldn’t be around to know that she’d
failed.

“I won’t—”

“I didn’t ask for your opinion,” Paige pulled her hand away
from his. “This is my death, I get to pick it.” Strangely, she felt almost
cheerful about it. Of course, that might be the hysteria setting in.

Brady shook his head. “I won’t eat you.”

Paige stared at him, her stomach turning at the thought.
“Eat as in…eat? What the hell makes you think I was voting for cannibalism?”

“Because you said—” Brady frowned. “Explain this in small
words, because I’m missing something. Maybe it’s the life-threatening wounds,
but you’re making less sense than usual.”

“Can’t you feed from touch?” She laid her palm against his
chest. Brady’s eyes fell closed and a deep furrow formed between his brows.
“Anything?” she asked.

Brady shook his head. “No, nothing.”

Paige didn’t know if he was a different kind of demon or if
he had lied out of some pathetic attempt to protect her or if he didn’t know
how to feed that way. While eating seemed like something you should be born
knowing how to do, Brady hadn’t gotten all the instruction manuals.

“Well then we go with plan two.”

Brady looked at her warily. “I’m still not eating you.”

“I will never ask you eat me. Ever. Never ever. Not that
kind of eat.” Both Brady’s eyebrows went up and Paige could feel herself blush
all the way up to her hair. Clearly sitting too close to Brady was making her
sex-obsessed. “Look, if it ever crosses your mind that you think I want you to
eat me like a Thanksgiving turkey, assume that you’ve misunderstood me,” she
finished.

Brady gave her a half smile that looked lopsided with his
bruised face. “I can do that.”

“Good, because you’re starting to freak me out with the
cannibalism comments.”

“So what is plan number two?”

Paige ran a hand up and down Brady’s arm and immediately she
could feel the heat gathering between them. If Brady was some sort of incubus
who could make any woman feel this way, he’d survive psycho-bitch. He’d survive
and escape and Paige’s death would be worth it. “Well, I seem to remember that
there was a time you fed from me and I did not mind at all.”

Brady’s mouth fell open. The man had just gotten the snot
beat out of him and he still managed to look adorably clueless. “You can’t
mean—”

“Sex.”

“Yeah that’s pretty much what I thought you didn’t mean.”
Brady looked caught between disturbed and excited. “Do we have to go over the
part where I’m pretty sure that I’m not actually Brady? You know, the part
where I’m not human and you probably don’t want to have sex with me?”

“No. I get that. But then, I never did sleep with the actual
Brady. The lust pretty much started when it was you.”

“Because I’m an incubus?” Brady didn’t look happy about
that.

Paige shrugged. “That and I’m a sucker for the underdog. I
always have been. That might explain why I have so many questionable ex-lovers.
Not that I’m promiscuous, but the underdog has pretty much done it for me every
time.” She remembered when she’d first met her newest trainee, a man all smiles
and charm. He’d chatted Veronica up and conned Alex out of an invitation to the
poker game within four hours of starting. “Now Brady…human Brady, kind of had
it all going for him. Cute, charming, smart. He might not have known he had so
much going for him, but he did. He would’ve been a great cop and he would’ve
found a beautiful wife and had beautiful children. And I never would’ve looked
at him twice.” It was true. “No offense, you have the underdog vibe going for
you.”

“No offense taken.” Brady reached up and touched the corner
of his mouth where his lip was split. “I think you’re probably right.”

Paige sat on the edge of the bed and reached out to stroke
him over his swollen lower lip. “So, door number two is actually rather
pleasant. Hopefully. You are a little bruised.” She frowned as she wondered how
to do this without breaking him more.

“I’ll be fine,” Brady insisted. “But are you sure you want
to do this? Having sex to transfer energy to me is feeling a little…or a
lot…disturbing. Even if you do normally go for the underdog, I just don’t think
I’m the kind of underdog you normally go for.” He made a face. If he wanted to
convince her of his evil, he should probably start by spending less time
worrying about her. She leaned closer and cupped his face with her hands.

“I do want this,” she promised. “I know that. In case you
haven’t noticed, Brady, I have issues. I had a long history of choosing
questionable sexual partners before you ever showed up. So the fact that I seem
to have fallen for you isn’t even out of the norm.”

Brady gave an amused little snort. “Issues?”

“Issues. Huge issues. I have issues that breed new issues
like rabbits.”

Brady frowned as if he didn’t believe her.

“Brady, I was eight years old when my mother was killed by a
drunk driver, and for the next ten years, I blamed myself. She was trying to
push me off the road when the idiot hit her. After years of therapy, I can now
blame the driver. But I’m telling you I have issues. My father lives at the
bottom of a bottle, my first partner killed himself after getting shot in a
conflict I walked away from without a scratch and my longest interpersonal
relationships have been with my chickens.”

A look of horror crossed Brady’s face. “The chickens you
told me I could eat?” He sounded utterly scandalized.

Paige laughed. “That’s my point. You do see where I’m going
here, right? So if one of us is going to question the sanity of sleeping with
the other, quite frankly maybe you should be considering the sanity of sleeping
with me. Trust me, I’ve sent men running and screaming out of relationships. I
think a couple of them turned gay after me. And sadly, I’m only forty percent
joking.”

Reaching out, he caught her hand and intertwined his fingers
with hers. For a long time, he stared at their joined hands. “I don’t know. I
seem to have a few issues of my own. I’m looking at going back to hell because
the bitch who created me and adores me beyond reason makes my stomach turn.”
Brady made a face. “There is just something wrong with her.”

“I’m not going to disagree with you about that. She’s a
freak. However, can we skip the part where you go back to hell? Actually, let’s
skip the whole discussion because I think you’ll find most women don’t want to
talk about hell during foreplay.” She inched closer so that her hip touched his
and the desire started to build in her stomach.

“I can try to control it, take just enough to heal,” Brady
offered.

“No.” Paige barked the word out and Brady jumped. “No,” she
said again, this time in a softer voice. “You need your strength, so you take
as much as you need. She’s not letting me out of this room either way, so it’d
be better if you took it all.”

“You want me to take your life force?” Brady looked up at
her.

Paige’s right hand drifted down to rest against his
shoulder. Paige studied his strong chest. The bruising and the scratches were
visible, but the odd angle made by broken ribs looked better. If she didn’t get
this right, he was going to try to protect her.

In the field, a cop had to secure the area and protect his
own position before seeing to victims. It was a rule. If you saw someone down,
then you checked for perps first and you did first aid second. Otherwise you
put yourself at risk and the first goal was to avoid creating more victims.
Paige had taught a half dozen trainees that rule, including Brady. It didn’t
mean they all followed it.

“I’d rather die knowing I did the right thing by choosing
you.” He opened his mouth to protest, but she reached up to place a finger
against his lips. “It’s not your call, Brady. This is my call—my life. You
don’t get to make this decision for me. Besides, I’ve spent the last day or so
trying to come up with reasons why I shouldn’t sleep with you again and I can’t
come up with any.”

Brady looked up at her with concern. “There’s always the
fact that I’m a demon.”

Taking a deep breath, Paige thought about that. If he were
an alien life form who’d shown up with his own body, maybe this would be
easier. But he wasn’t. He also wasn’t the person who killed Brady. The bitch
upstairs would pay if Brady survived. Paige knew that. “You’re something not
human, Brady. I’m not ready to call that evil. You certainly don’t have enough
evil in you to qualify for any particularly demonic jobs.”

He gave her a crooked grin. “I’m kinda good at eating
chickens.”

“And like I told you before, that doesn’t qualify as evil.
It qualifies as having poor table manners, that’s another issue.”

Paige let her hand slide down his face and over his neck.
She rested her fingers against the side of his neck, almost afraid to touch too
much. She didn’t want to hurt him.

“It’s okay. I’m fine,” Brady whispered. She looked into his
eyes.

“No, you aren’t,” Paige said. Leaning down, she placed a
kiss just under his left nipple in one of the few completely unmarred patches
of skin. Brady released her left hand and he traced a finger up and down the
back of her arm. Sitting up, she pulled her shirt off and Brady sucked in a
breath. It felt good having that effect on someone. It felt good knowing she
was doing something. If she couldn’t get out of this, Brady would just have to
get some justice for her after he regained his strength.

Chapter Twenty

Paige pulled her shirt off. Brady didn’t seem to be getting
the ball rolling without a little encouragement and she could provide that.
Watching her, Brady’s tongue slipped out to slide along his lower lip. She
twitched her body and pressed closer. Only then did Brady’s fingers brush
across her bare waist. A shiver caught Paige off-guard and he rested his hand
against her hip.

When Paige reached for him, she touched a deep bruise where
his skin felt swollen and smooth and she hesitated. “I really am okay,” he said
softly.

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

“The demon upgrade came with a pretty strong body. I’m okay,
Paige.” Reaching out, he caught her hand and brought it up to his shoulder
where a purpling bruise stained his skin. His shredded shirt gaped open,
allowing her fingers access to the injury. “It actually feels good,” Brady
said.