Wicked Pleasure (35 page)

Not that her little life-altering moment meant squat in the grand scheme of things. Because even if Brynn's compulsion eventually disappeared, as long as he believed he was a demon—and she hadn't come down on either side of that argument yet—he'd never commit to forever with her.

“Kimmie?”

Fo's anxious voice pulled her back to what was important right now. Kim didn't want Fo to be crushed if Dirk's detector wasn't sentient, and there was a good chance it wasn't.

“He might not be like you, Fo.” She picked up Dirk's detector and flipped it open. “Please don't be too disappointed if he doesn't live up to your hopes. We still love you.” We. She automatically included Brynn.

Kim glanced up at him. Brynn smiled his heart-stopping smile that made breathing a real chore for her. Forcing her attention away from his smile, she looked down at Dirk's detector. It stared back with those scary red eyes.

“I'll talk to him, Kimmie.” Fo was taking charge.

Kim allowed Brynn to lead her to the couch. They both sat down.

He leaned close. “This is groundbreaking stuff. Think of the possibilities for online dating services.”

Kim smiled, and her mood lightened a little.

“Hi, I'm Fo. Do you have a name?” For all her seeming confidence, Fo sounded tentative.

The silence stretched on and on, and Kim bit her lip to keep silent. She couldn't say anything to save Fo from hurt.

“No. Should I have one?”

The deep male voice was a total surprise. Kim didn't know what she'd expected, but it wasn't this darkly sensual rumble. She stopped herself just short of thinking it was wasted on a machine. It wasn't wasted on Fo. But wow, old Sergei had outdone himself on this one.

“Of course. Everyone should have a great name.” Fo was immediately outraged on her new friend's behalf.

“Why should I have a name when no one ever talks to me?” The deep voice sounded truly puzzled.

“No one?” Fo seemed shocked by the admission. “Well, we'll talk to you, and we'll give you a great name, won't we, Kimmie?”

“Sure will,” Kim frowned. “Wait, Dirk said you spoke to him when you identified the demons, so that means there was some verbal communication going on.”

“I've never spoken to him.”

Okay, Kim saw a basic flaw in his statement. “If you've never talked to Dirk, how do you warn him when a demon is near?”

“I don't detect demons.” He delivered his bombshell calmly, but his eyes looked uncertain. “Should I?”

“So what
do
you do?” Brynn didn't wait to be invited into the conversation.

“I destroy.” He seemed on firmer ground here.

“Demons?” Kim was still hopeful.

“Anything.” There was something chilling in the machine's calm declaration. “My creator programmed me to destroy a target with a beam that leaves no evidence behind of how the human or nonhuman died.”

Human
or nonhuman? “Why would Sergei do that?” Kim was horrified. No evidence left behind? This was a scary machine.

“I don't know.” The detector eyed Fo.

“Interesting.” Brynn sounded thoughtful. “Has Dirk ever used you to kill anyone?”

“No.” The detector's gaze never left Fo.

Brynn cast Kim a meaningful glance. “Why don't we give Fo and her new friend some time alone? We can wait out in the hall.” He hoped she didn't fight him on this.

“I guess so.” She stared at Dirk's detector like it was the reincarnation of Jack the Ripper.

“Thank you.” Fo looked ecstatic. Her new friend's destructive capabilities hadn't dimmed her fascination with him. Love must be blind even with sentient machines.

“Give me a moment.” Kim grabbed jeans and a top from her closet and hurried into the bathroom. Once dressed, she picked up her doughnut and coffee and then followed Brynn into the hall.

Once outside the room, Brynn raked his fingers through his hair as he tried to make sense of what the detector had revealed.

Kim paced. “What was Sergei thinking? If Dirk hits the Destroy button to get rid of a demon that's taken a human host, he'll kill the human. He doesn't even know he's dealing with a sentient being.”

“We're assuming Dirk doesn't know. After all, he lied to you about the detector speaking to him.” That assumption might be wrong. Not a comfortable thought, but one that had to be considered.

“Of course he doesn't know. What good is the detector to him the way it is now?” But Brynn could tell she was turning it over in her mind even as she defended her relative.

“The detector said it had never killed anyone, had never even talked to Dirk. What are the chances, considering how rabid Dirk sounded about destroying demons?” The chances were nonexistent so far as Brynn was concerned, but he'd keep his opinion to himself.

“You're right.” She looked troubled. “Either Dirk wasn't telling the truth about loving to hunt demons and tried to make himself look good by saying the detector spoke to him, in which case he doesn't know about his detector because he's never tried to use it, or . . .”

“Or he's used it to kill, and the detector lied to us.” Neither scenario brightened Brynn's day.

“Why would a detector lie?” Her eyes widened at the possibility.

Brynn shrugged. “You said this Sergei died. How did he die?”

“I have no idea.” Her expression said she knew where he was going with this, and it didn't make her happy. “I'll ask Fo to find out. She can access Web info.”

“No matter what we might suspect, someone has to warn your uncle.” This would be a problem.

Kim nodded. “Yeah, and then he'll know who borrowed his detector. And I don't think he'll be sympathetic to Fo's plight.”

“We can't involve Asima. Even if we were willing to, your uncle wouldn't believe a cat got into his locked room and made off with his detector while he was sleeping.”

Kim sighed. “We'll have to let Asima take it back to Dirk's room. He won't catch her. It'd be nice if Dirk was still asleep, but we couldn't get that lucky. He'll just have to be left with an unsolved mystery.” Leaning over, she set her coffee and doughnut on the floor and then sat down with her back propped against the wall. “I guess we'll have to figure out how to let him know about his detector without implicating ourselves.”

“And if he already knows?” Brynn sat down beside her.

“Then we have a problem.” Her expression said she didn't want to consider that possibility because it would mean good old Uncle Dirk had a secret dark side.

Since neither one of them could come up with a way to inform Dirk that his detector was a little less and a little more than he'd bargained for, they sat in silence for a few minutes.

“We have some time to kill, so let's talk about your compulsion, or the lack thereof.” She didn't look at him. “We've been together night and day since Monday night. And as of five this morning, it's been twenty-four hours since the last one.”

He didn't want to talk about his compulsion. Brynn wanted to sit quietly next to her thinking about her smooth, bare body under her jeans and top, because he knew she hadn't taken panties or a bra into the bathroom with her.

Kim wasn't one to sit quietly when she could worry a problem to death. “We have to at least consider the possibility that—”

He put his finger over her lips. “Don't say it. Don't even think it.”

“Why not?” She stared at him from wide green eyes.

Brynn exhaled sharply and rubbed the back of his neck to relieve the tension. “It's like the compulsion is hiding, and if I think or talk about it being gone, it'll jump out and yell boo.” That sounded really mature.

She smoothed her fingers over his thigh. “We have to face what's happening.”

We
. Warmth curled inside him as she aligned herself on his side. “Yeah, I know.”

“You'll have to test it.” He must've looked horrified because she rushed into her explanation. “You'll have to stay with another woman for twenty-four hours to make sure I'm not the catalyst.”

“Another woman?” Surprised, Brynn realized he was unhappy with her idea because it meant he'd be away from her all those hours, not because he feared the compulsion might return.

“It has to be someone who knows about the compulsion. That narrows it down to two women. There's Sparkle . . .”

“And what do you think Sparkle, the self-proclaimed queen of all things sexual, will do the first time I offer her my body?” A nobrainer.

“Right. She'll pounce. It has to be Donna.” She didn't look too enthusiastic about her test either, and he immediately felt better.

“When?” The sooner the better. He wanted to know one way or another about the compulsion. But no matter what happened, he'd come back to Kim.

“We can talk to Donna tonight after she rises. I know you have to take part in the fantasies, but when you're finished you can hang around with her for what's left of the night. When dawn comes, you can sleep on her couch. Heaven knows you've had a lot of practice sleeping on couches lately.” She didn't try to hide her unhappiness with that fact. “Do you think Eric will be okay with you spending the night in the same room as them? And I never asked if the compulsion cares if the woman is married or single.”

She was starting to think of the compulsion as a separate entity. A mistake. The compulsion was a part of who he was. “When the compulsion hits, I don't ask the marital status of the woman, I just start getting naked.”

“Okay, then.” She didn't sound like it was okay. “You'll be done by early Friday morning.” She offered him a warm smile. “Why does that suddenly seem such a long time?”

Warm wasn't good enough. He wanted her to give him a sexy smile that said she'd make love with him wherever he wanted—on the floor, under the bed, in the shower, or on top of a building in Times Square. Anywhere but in her bed. He glanced at his watch. Yeah, they had time to discuss the bed thing.

“I want to make love with you.” May as well get it out in the open. “But not in your bed. Maybe on the beach. Making love on the beach at midnight with the moon shining would be incredible.” Or not. It was still a little cold on the beach at night in March. But he'd try to generate enough heat to keep both of them hot.

At first she looked startled by his change of subject, but then something in her gaze said he wasn't going to escape that easily. “Maybe I need you to make love with me in my bed.” She looked away from him.

Memories of centuries spent as an unwilling visitor to women's beds lay cold around his heart. “Coming to your bed would remind me of the compulsion.”

She glanced back at him, and something sad shimmered in her eyes. “I guess I'd like to think I could create a different memory.”

She didn't say it, but Brynn didn't have to slide into her mind to understand what she meant. Kim wanted to be special enough to make him forget about all those other women.

He tried to think logically. “For five centuries I've had to climb into women's beds and give them what they wanted sexually. That's a lot of negative reinforcement. I can't reason away what I'm feeling, because it's all about hate, self-loathing, and fear. Logic doesn't get you anywhere with emotions that strong. It would take a more powerful emotion to get past all that baggage.”

“Like love?” She showed him only sympathetic interest.

He nodded. “Like love.”
Kim could be that woman.
The thought didn't startle him as much as he'd expected. Probably because his subconscious had been playing with the idea for a while.

Of course, love between them wouldn't work. Even if the compulsion
was
gone forever, he still wasn't human. He couldn't ask her to commit to a lifetime with him. Not that she'd want to anyway once she thought about the ramifications.

The irony of the whole thing almost made him laugh. Too bad it wasn't funny. Because if he came to her bed knowing he loved her, he'd have a whole new bed memory to torture himself with once she left him.

All bed discussions ended as the elevator doors opened and Asima emerged. She padded over to them.
“I hate to break up the happy couple, but I have to get our mystery man back to your uncle's room. Dirk just charged down to the registration desk and demanded they find the filthy thief who stole his detector.”

Brynn nodded as he waited for Kim to grab her coffee and uneaten doughnut. Then he helped her up. They walked to the door and knocked before entering.

Kim hurried over to Fo. “I'm sorry, but Asima has to take . . .” She glanced at Fo's unnerving new friend.

“Gabriel. Fo has named me Gabriel. It's a good name.” The gleam in his red eyes said she could've named him Bozo, and it would've been fine with him.

Fo had named him after an archangel. Brynn thought that was kind of symbolic, considering they were hunting an archdemon.

“Asima has to take Gabriel back to Dirk's room right now. Dirk's down in the lobby raising holy hell.” Kim looked at Gabriel. “You can't say anything about being here because . . . because it'll get Fo in lots of trouble.”

Gabriel widened his eyes in alarm. “I would never do anything to cause Fo grief. I won't answer, even if Dirk speaks to me.”

“Thank you.” Fo's eyes may as well have had the words
my hero
blinking in their purple depths. “We'll find a way to be together.”

“Yes.” Gabriel's voice held a dangerous quality that promised unpleasant consequences for anyone who got in his way.