Nate Temple hummed deep in his throat. Jessie’s tongue was raw sugar in his mouth. He never thought he’d find someone who resurrected his muted senses the way she did. He’d heard about the phenomenon, especially with bonded Guardian pairs, but he hadn’t cared, figuring his enhanced abilities—super-human speed, strength, and hearing—made his other numbed senses a fair trade.

He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed them until that first day he’d passed Jessie in the hall, the wild pink streak in her light brown, corkscrew hair a show of defiance that he longed to touch. Her outfit that day suggested she’d returned from a jaunt to the gym, as did the provocative flush on her cheeks.

A flush that he would pay a fortune to experience resurrected in the throes of passion.

Somehow she’d brought his world back to living color, taste, and scent since his death during a Zeppelin bombing raid on London’s East End in 1915.

Right now, he had to feel her entire weight in his arms. Grabbing the back of her legs beneath her bum, he pulled her thighs up and apart to wrap around his trunk. He went in for another taste of her mouth but found layers of her scarf instead. “Stuff these bloody accessories! Why do women wear such buggery things?”

He pivoted and went down on one knee to settle her on the sofa. She pulled off the offensive scarf, then grasped the bottom edge of her sweatshirt. A strangled sound erupted from his throat at her sudden bold moves after such alluring hints of shyness. And…

By the Devil!

He rubbed his hands down his pant legs and inhaled forcefully. There were those soft mocha breasts he’d dreamt about. He spared a moment to take her in. Had he ever seen more magnificent breasts? He tried to speak to tell her how perfect they were, but his mouth couldn’t wait. His palms slid up her midsection to cup the heavy weight. She shuddered, her fingers threading through his hair when his tongue planted broad strokes against her tight nipples.

The messy bun atop her head failed to constrain the curly, light-capturing strands of brown, gold, and hot pink next to an entirely suckable ear. “I fancy your cheeky hair,” he whispered.

“I fancy your breath on my skin,” she sighed back.

One by one, he took the pins out of her hair until it sprung down to hover about her shoulders as though it had life of its own. He pushed her knees wide and laid flush against her, pressing her into the sofa, breathing her beachy coconut and berries scent deep into his pores as he took one velvety earlobe between his teeth. Her arms came around him, pulling him closer to her pillowy breasts.

How had he ever been attracted to the willowy type? Comparing all those women to curvy Jessica was like putting a stack of granola bars next to a hot fudge sundae.

No comparison.

“You feel, smell, and mmm…taste so good.” He slid his fingers under the waistband of her booty-hugging pants. “I really love your bum in these trousers, but I think it’s time they come off.” His hands lifted her bottom to pull the black yoga pants down her legs to pool around her ankles. Lacy knickers rode low on her hips. “Damn, you’re lush.” He wanted to lick her all over. She squirmed under his perusal, clamped her legs together, and pulled a throw blanket against her belly.

He tried to slide it away. “No, I must see you.”

“You can see me,” she insisted.

“Not all of you.”

“Turn off the lights.”

“Bloody hell, no. I’ve been dying for this moment. I’m not missing anything.”

Her cheeks were flush, she wasn’t looking at him, and this was all wrong suddenly. He tried to dispel the hard grip of lust that had him wound tighter than a ten-day clock. “Do you want to stop?”

“No. I’d like…I would feel better if the lights were off. At least most of them.” She spoke to the floor.

What? Self-conscious? “Woman, you’re hourglass personified. A walking wet dream.” He ran his hands up her thighs under the blanket to caress her lace thong. His thumbs dipped to press at her warm, wet center, and her head settled back against the cushions. She shifted to stretch her legs a little. Still, she didn’t release her death grip on the blanket. “Who’s the duffer who made you feel like you need to cover yourself?”

Her eyes snapped open as she scooted up. “No one. I can see for myself what my gut looks like. Geez. If I thought this was going to turn into a therapy session, I would’ve put on a pot of coffee first.” The blanket came up to cover her breasts now, too.

This was not the way he’d envisioned this going down. He repressed a sigh, sat beside her, and hauled her into his lap.

“Wait!” she squeaked.

“Belt up, I was content to worship your ripe body, but since you’re the one who started in on the lights business, we’re going to suss it out so we can shoot it down and get on with the fun stuff. Right?” Her bum was so warm and full on his lap he was going to have to concentrate on dead puppies or, hell, intestine-shredded demons to prevent coming in his jeans right now. “Blast, Jessie. Don’t. Move. Like that.” Sweat broke out on his brow. It was the closest he’d come to prematurely blowing his junk since he’d been a human teenager. He stood with her in his arms and strode into her dark bedroom. He plunked her down on the bed so abruptly her breasts bounced, and—glory hallelujah!—he’d never been so happy to have Guardian-enhanced night vision.

He yanked the blanket off her, his body taking its place in a heartbeat. “It’s dark. Feel better now?” His lips found her neck, one forearm next to her head, as his free hand couldn’t seem to cover enough of her satin landscape.

She arched her head back into the mattress, wriggled her legs apart, and gasped as his bulge made contact with her thong.

This woman bled passion, but he was entirely too far gone to bother with the psychology behind her sex-with-the-lights-off dysfunction. That was not okay, but he was too much of an arsehole to take the high road and fix this right now.

But he would. The challenge both rattled and exhilarated him. A sick mix of emotions he hadn’t felt in a long time.

Her hands swiveled low on his abdomen. His gut muscles recoiled from her touch as she yanked on the edges of his shirt, unsnapping the bottom buttons. He leaned up to let her finish the job, unable to take his gaze from her face, knowing she couldn’t see him and that she assumed the same of him. He’d never seen such a look of raw hunger on any woman’s face.

He slid down her body, teeth nipping, tongue sampling the softness of her skin all the way down to her legs. When his knees came off the bed, he pulled her bum to the edge of the mattress and dispensed with her knickers. “You want this, Jessica?”

“I dooo—”

His mouth was on her before she even finished her utterance. Her erotic vocalizations were making him barmy. He pushed her legs wider and —

Nate, I need you at ETHER immediately.

Nate groaned to hear Alexios speak in his head. Like Nate, Alexios was a member of Unholy Inc, a world-wide network of Guardian nightclubs which served as hubs for their demon-hunting activities. Alexios also happened to be the first created Guardian—which meant he was bloody ancient.

Go away, you Spartan sod. I’m busy, Nate pushed telepathically back at him, massaging Jessie, reaching up to palm her breast with his other hand. He could feel her body drawing tighter, pulling her up into a mass of sensations that he could metaphysically translate when he closed his eyes. Her passion manifested in a complex blast of jewel-toned colors that exploded behind his eyelids like a kaleidoscope with a hundred mirrors.

Amazing.

He’d gladly die a hundred deaths to wallow in these rich colors and patterns with her.

“Ooo.”

“Yes, Jessie. Come for me, Angel.”

Jinx returned from recon. Based on her intel, something’s going down on TERRA’s opening night.

No way should he respond to Alexios. Didn’t matter if his earlier conversation with the Guardian leader had left him uneasy. Right now, as he drank from Jessie, tasted her, her thighs were shaking, her hips bucking, and he’d never felt so overwhelmingly alive since the moment of his death more than a hundred years ago. And wasn’t that something? It was intriguing, addicting, and…

Alarming.

If you aren’t at ETHER in fifteen minutes, I’m going to put you on Incubus duty for two fortnights.

Nate gave Jessie one more broad tongue stroke, and she careened off the cliff. She reached for him as her body calmed so he crawled onto the bed to lie beside her. She turned toward him, her hands moving toward his button fly. “Thank you for that,” she whispered. “It’s been a long time.”

“Mankind’s loss.” His, too, because he had to leave before gorging himself on the Jessie buffet. She scooted down to press kisses against his chest where his heart beat a rapid rhythm. Blast and damn, he didn’t want to put her to sleep. Alexios, you’ll pay for this, you dodgy wanker.

Deep echoes of the Guardian’s laughter only reinforced Nate’s desire for revenge.

“You’re beautiful, Jessica.”

“So are you, Nate.”

He blinked at her for a moment, his name on her lips affecting him more strongly than he could have imagined. His body pulsed, hungry for release as he grasped both of her lovely, wandering hands, pulled them over her head, and rolled on top of her. The kiss he’d meant as a claiming, turned out to be much softer. So much more intimate. When they were both breathless, he pulled back to caress her face, his heart heavy with an unfamiliar disquiet. His time was running out if he wanted to avoid a month’s worth of hunting demons who raped people in their sleep.

Alexios was for damn sure going to pay for this interruption.

He ran a hand down Jessie’s hip. “I promise I’ll be back. Until then…Somnus.”

Jessie’s eyes drifted shut, her mind instantly asleep at his command. He eased her under the covers, brushing brown and pink curls away from her face, unable to resist kissing her one more time. After slipping on his shirt, he removed the quiche and turned the oven off. Then he stepped into the hallway, locked the door, and added wards to repel not only the Incubi, but also the Rephaim and Nephilim, three classes of fallen angels who could control demons—evil, bodiless spirits who’d gone to hell and required a human host if they found a way back to Earth to torment those whose hearts still beat with life.

Fallen angels, on the other hand, took their own forms so they didn’t need a host, using glamor to walk undetected among the humans. And then there were the archdemons. As Lucifer’s children, they were at the top of Hell’s food chain, able to control even the fallen angels.

That was Demonology 101. Nate knew it well, though he had yet to cross paths with an archdemon.

Demons—in all their toxic manifestations—were all too real, although most humans couldn’t see them. It was a pain in the ass, but he was in his own form of Purgatory because of the despicable choices he’d made as a human. The only time he’d ever been honorable was his final decision when he’d sacrificed his human life for that of a stranger’s.

One noble moment in a life built in homage to selfishness. It was true of all Guardians, except Alexios.

Of course, Nate’s choices had been a necessity in the dog-eat-shit world of twentieth century East End London. But apparently the big chief upstairs didn’t take survival circumstances into account when weighing your actions. It would’ve been swell if the Guardians received some sort of “play-nice” pill to help ease their post-human journey. But no. They were stuck with the same shitty vices they’d possessed their first go-round, and it would remain that way until the Apocalypse rolled around.

Lamentably, resisting his vices was usually harder than throwing down with the demons who managed to worm their way to Earth and inhabit a human host. He’d been called a manipulative asshole more times and in more astonishingly creative ways than he could recount, but honestly, he could be a lot worse. Take Katherine, for instance. She was another Unholy Inc member, and she could be a downright, cold-hearted ogress.

Whatever.

Nate went down the stairs and stepped out the front door of the building, grateful for the brisk autumn air on his heated skin. He wasn’t afraid of demons, but he was unsettled about Jessie. The senses she’d awakened indicated that she was important to him in a way that he couldn’t put his finger on.

She couldn’t be a compar—a potential soul mate—because she was human. Yet there was something very compelling about her. He’d have to ask another Unholy Inc partner, Jinx, if she’d ever heard of this type of connection between a Guardian and a human.

Whatever was between them, he wanted to be with Jessie again soon.

Unfortunately, in less than twelve hours she’d find out who he really was.

Then things might get a little tetchy.