ot finishing was not going to be easy.

As Marie-Terese worked magic on his arousal, Vin felt like his skin was on fire and his blood was boiling and his bone marrow had turned into lightning. With every sucking draw and grabbing slide, she was sending him right to the edge, his body dangling off a precipice he was dying to fall from - and was completely unwilling to let go of. God...his self-control was killing him in the best way; his head jacked back against the pillow, his thighs rigid, his chest pumping. She was taking him to Heaven and putting him through Hell in equal measures, and he wanted it to go on forever.

But he really wasn't going to last much longer.

Lifting his head took all his strength, and when he looked down his body, he positively spasmed. Marie-Terese's mouth was stretched wide, her beautiful breasts hanging lush and full, her nipples brushing against his thighs -

"Oh, fuck." He lunged up and pulled her from his erection, his fingers biting into her upper arms as he struggled not to come.

"Are you - "

Vin cut her off by kissing her hard and rolling her over. Before he could stop himself, he linked his arm under one of her knees and stretched her up. He was growling, he was wild, he was - "I need you now, Vin!" Her nails sank into his ass as she went boneless beneath him. "Shit...yes - "

Except both of them froze at the same time. Together, they said, "Condom."

Vin grunted and stretched out for the bedside table, the movement driving him even harder into her curves - and she didn't help things in the slightest by moving herself against him in a wave.

As the erotic sensation of flesh on flesh reverberated through his body, Vin lost contact with the Trojan he'd palmed, the little square flipping out of his grip like it had been taking flying lessons. "Goddamn it!"

Leaning down to the floor, his hips shifted and his cock went along for the ride, brushing right over her hot, sweet core. With a quick jerk, he moved back, because he didn't want to lose control, and...

Man, things didn't go well on the lower level as the square played keep-away from his sloppy hand.

"Let me help," Marie-Terese said, joining the hunt.

She was the one who finally caught the pale blue prize, pushing herself up and laughing as she held it over her head. "Got it!"

Vin started laughing along with her, and in a flash, he pulled her in close, hugging her. He was still fully erect and panting to come, but he was also light and free as he grinned and she giggled and they rolled around together, messing up the duvet. The condom got lost in the process, resurfacing and disappearing by turns like a fish in the water.

The thing ended up stuck to his side, like it had finally decided to be claimed. Or had decided to claim him.

Vin peeled it off, broke the foil open, and sheathed himself. Rolling her over onto her back again, he nudged his way between her thighs and swept her hair back from her eyes.

The collision was impending and electric, but the moment was soft and sweet: She positively glowed as she looked up at him.

"What," she whispered, palming his face.

Vin took a moment to memorize her features and the way she felt beneath him, seeing her not just through his eyes, but feeling her with his skin and his heart. "Hello, lovely lady...hello."

As she blushed beautifully, he kissed her deep, his tongue stroking against hers, their bodies settling in. One shift of his hips and his erection moved into position, and then he was driving forward slowly, easing into her. As her core took him inside and that spectacular constriction resonated, he dropped his head into her gorgeous hair and let go.

Long, deep, pounding...no more laughter now - only delicious desperation that choked him and revived him by turns. It was the same as it had been when she'd had her mouth on him: the kind of thing he never wanted to end, although that just wasn't possible.

Overcome, Vin roared as he contracted from his head to his calves, and from a distance he heard her say his name, felt her nails rake down his spine, absorbed the waves of her release.

When they'd caught their breath, he was still hard as he held on to the base of the condom and withdrew. "I'll be right back."

After he was finished in the bath, he returned and stretched out next to her. "You know what I have in there?" He pointed with his thumb toward the marble expanse he'd used to clean up.

"What?" She ran her hands over his arms and onto his shoulders.

"Six. Shower. Heads."

"Reeeeeally."

"Yup. Larry, Curly, Moe, Joe, and Frankie."

"Wait, only five have names?"

"Well, there's Freaky, but I'm not sure whether he's fit for mixed company."

Her laugher was another kind of orgasm for him, the sort of thing that warmed him from the inside out.

"Will you let me visit you?" he whispered. "After you leave."

Wrong thing to say. Drained the happy right out of her face. "I'm sorry," he said quickly. "I shouldn't have asked. Shit, I shouldn't - "

"I would like that."

Her answer was as quiet as his question had been, and the unspoken but hung between them like a draft of acrid smoke.

"Come with me," he said, prepared to drop it. If they didn't have a lot of time left together, he wasn't about to ruin what they had. "Let me wash my sweat off your skin." She held on to his arms, her hands tightening to stop him.

Shaking his head, he brushed her mouth with his. "There are no promises and I understand that."

"I wish I could make them."

"I know." He slid his legs off the bed and scooped her up in his arms. "But I have you now, don't I."

He held her aloft as he walked into the bath...held her up off the marble floor as he turned on the shower...held her in his arms as he put his hand under the spray and waited until it got warm enough.

"You don't have to carry me," she said into his neck.

"I know. I just don't want to let you go while you're still here."

"Did you ever see Fatal Attraction?" Adrian said.

As the cargo elevator in Devina's warehouse closed its doors, Jim looked across what was essentially an entire room's worth of space. Hell, you could take a grand piano upstairs in the damn thing.

"Excuse me?" he asked.

"Fatal Attraction. The movie." Adrian ran his hands up and down the metal walls. "Great scene in an elevator just like this one. In my top ten."

"Let me guess, the other nine are on the Internet."

Eddie pushed the button marked five and the thing lurched like a bronco. "Glenn Close was a psycho in that movie."

Adrian shrugged and the sly smile on his face seemed to suggest that he was putting himself in the picture, so to speak. "How much does that really matter, though?"

Eddie and Jim glanced at each other and the rolled eyes went unexpressed, because what was the point? You picked that habit up around Adrian and you'd spend your life staring at the ceiling.

On the fifth floor, the elevator bumped to a halt and the doors rattled as Eddie worked the release lever and threw them open.

The hall was clean, but dark as a shed, with brick walls held together by ancient, sloppy mortar and a wooden plank floor finished in old-age wear and tear. Down to the left, there was a metal door on the scale of the elevator with an exit sign over it. All the way to the right, there was another door - this one made of nickel-plated steel panels.

Jim unholstered his gun and took the safety off. "She likely to live with anyone?"

"Solo operator, generally speaking. Although she has been known to take pets from time to time."

"Rottweilers?"

"Spitting cobras. Copperheads. She likes snakes - but then maybe it's a recycle, reuse thing for her shoes and handbags. Who the fuck knows."

As they walked over to the nickel-plated door, Jim whistled softly. Stacked up one on top of another, the seven dead bolts gleamed like honor medals on the chest of a soldier. "Jesus, check out the locks on this thing."

"Even the paranoid have enemies, son," Adrian murmured.

"Yeah, you can lose the 'son' shit."

"How old are you? Forty? I'm four hundred if I'm a day."

"Okay, fine." Jim glared over his shoulder. "Can you work your magic on this, Gramps?"

Adrian flipped his middle finger, put his hand on the knob, and...got nowhere. "Fuck. She's blocked this."

"What do you mean?"

"The worst kind of spell." Adrian nodded grimly at Eddie. "You're up."

As the silent man stepped forward, Adrian grabbed onto Jim's arm and pulled back. "You're going to want to give him some space."

Eddie lifted his palm and closed his eyes and went statue still. His strong face with its prominent lips and square jaw assumed a calm determination, and after a moment, soft chanting emanated from him - except as far as Jim knew, the man's...angel's...whatever...lips were not moving.

Oh, wait...it wasn't singing.

Waves of energy pulsed out of the angel's palm, like heat rising on asphalt in the summer, and making a rythmic sound as they rippled through the air.

One by one there were a series of shifts as the dead bolts released, and then there was a final click and the door wafted open as if the space beyond had let out a breath.

"Nice," Jim murmured as Eddie's hooded lids lifted. The guy took a deep breath and moved his shoulders around as if they were stiff. "Let's be quick about this. We don't know how long she's going to be out for."

Adrian went in first, a vicious kind of hatred burning in his expression, and Eddie was right on his tail.

"What...the...fuck..." Jim said as he entered.

"Always with the collecting," Adrian spat. "The bitch."

Jim's first thought was that the vast, open place was like some kind of fucked-up furniture liquidator's store. There were hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of clocks, all grouped by type, but otherwise unorganized: Grandfathers stood in a messy circle in the far corner, like they had been milling around and had frozen in place as soon as the door opened. Circular wall hangers were nailed to the thick wooden support beams that ran vertically from floor to ceiling. Mantel showpieces sat scattered on shelves and so did alarm clocks and metronomes.

But the pocket watches were the freakiest.

Suspended from the lofty I-beamed ceiling, like spiders on tendrils, pocket watches of all ages and makes dangled from black strings.

"Time keeps on...slippin'...slippin'...slippin' into the future," Adrian drawled as he walked around.

Except actually, it didn't. Every one of the clocks and watches was stopped. Hell, more than stopped - the pendulums in those grandfathers were frozen in space, at the top of their arcs.

Jim shifted his eyes away from the time-keeping melange and found another collection.

Devina had one and only one kind of furniture: bureaus. There must have been twenty to thirty of them, and they were crowded in a disorganized huddle, like the one in the middle had called a quick meeting and they had just rushed over. As with the clocks, there were all different kinds - antique ones that looked like they belonged in museums, new ones with sleek lines, cheapos that had to have been made in China and sold at Target.

"Shit, I'll bet she put it in one of these," Adrian said as he and Eddie went up to the jumbled assembly.

"What is that smell?" Jim asked, rubbing his nose.

"You don't want to know."

The fuck he didn't. Something was very wrong, and not just because she had some serious OCD issues when it came to decorating: The air was tainted with a scent that made Jim's flesh crawl. Sweet...way too sweet.

Leaving Eddie and Adrian to their needle-in-a-haystack routine, Jim went exploring. Like all lofts, there were no divisions of the space except for the one in the corner that had to demarcate the bathroom. Which meant the knives in the kitchen were on full display.

On the granite counter, there were all sorts of blades: hunting ones and Swiss armies and steaks and butchers and prison-made roughies and cooks' delights and box cutters. The business ends were long and short, smooth and serrated, rusted and shiny. And like the bureaus and the clocks, they were in a hodgepodge of disorder, the handles and the tips facing all which ways.

For a man who had found himself in a lot of nasty-ass situations, this was a new one.

Jim felt as if he'd walked into All-wrong Land.

Inhaling deep he tried to clear his head, but just ended up clogging his nose. That smell...what was it? And where was it coming from? The bathroom, he realized.

"Don't go in there, Jim," Eddie called out as he started in that direction. "Jim! No - "

Yeah, fuck that. The smell was the nostril equivalent of new pennies in your mouth, and there was only one thing that made that -

From out of nowhere, Eddie appeared in front of him, blocking the way. "No, Jim. You can't go in there."

"Blood. That smell is blood."

"I know."

Jim spoke slowly, as if Eddie had lost his damn mind. "So someone's bleeding in there."

"If you breach the seal on that door, you might as well trigger a security alarm." Eddie pointed to the floor. "You see that."

Jim frowned and looked down. Right in front of his boots, there was a faint line of dirt, as if it had been lightly sprinkled there by a careful hand.

"If you open this," Eddie said, "it's going to pass over that barrier and our cover will be blown."

"Why?"

"Before she left, she treated the edge of the door with a specific kind of blood and that dirt's from a graveyard. One passes over the other and it releases energy she's going to sense clear as an atomic bomb going off."

"What kind of blood is it?" Jim asked, even though he knew he wasn't going to like the answer. "And why didn't she do it to where we entered through?"

"She needs a controlled environment to pull the protection spell off. The hall outside? She can't be sure the cleaning staff wouldn't disturb the dirt or that someone wouldn't mess it up. And all this stuff" - Eddie swept his hand around - "is not as important as what's inside here."

Jim stared at the closed door as if at any second he might pull a Superman and be able to see through the thing.

"Jim. Jim...you can't go in there. We need to find the ring and take off."

There was more to this, Jim thought. As much as Adrain had revealed back at his studio, the angels had a pattern of telling him what he needed to know for the moment and not one byte of information more than that. So there was definitely shit going on here that he was unaware of...

"Jim."

Jim focused on the doorknob that was within grabbing distance. He was kind of through with being out of the loop, and if it took a showdown with Devina to bring him up to speed, it was hard to think that was a bad thing.

"Jim."