Devil Mine (Walk Through Shadows Book Two)

Chapter Three

I could spend a lifetime in this moment.

The words streamed through Em's mind for what seemed like the millionth time while she stood at the bar, waiting for Bastion to finish pouring her order. The brief message had been written in a very masculine cursive on the back of a photo of Balthazar and herself. It was one of the most sensual images she'd ever seen. The two of them locked in an embrace. She was looking at him with pure desire as his lips hovered over hers.

What the hell did he mean? Who the hell writes something like that and then just disappears?

She shook her head once as the drink she was waiting on was set on her tray. "Thanks, hun." She smiled at Bastion, then picked up her tray and went to deposit the drink in front of an older man at a table near the stage. It was a light crowd that night. The large room was only about half full. She didn't have to dodge as many bodies as usual on her way back to the bar. Her eyes scanned the tables as she moved, checking to see who might need a refill. She set her tray down and leaned against the dark wood. Her gaze lifted to the big mirror lining the wall behind the back bar. Diana was undoing her top, smiling her professionally whitened smile at the nearest customers. Her brassy, bought in a drugstore, blonde locks swayed with the music. Em looked away with a frown. Thanks to lower-than-expected enrollment in one of her classes, that was going to be her in a little while.

The door of the bar opened, letting in a blast of humid summer heat. Sin, in a black leather jacket, walked in.

It took every ounce of effort Em could muster to keep her jaw from falling open at the sight approaching them. He was tall and broad shouldered. His long, dark brown hair was pulled back in a simple low ponytail. As he walked closer, she noticed his eyes. They were the same colour as the expensive whiskey sitting on the top shelf behind Bastion. His gaze did a lazy sweep of the room and his sexy lips curved into a hint of a smirk, giving off the impression that he found everything and everyone around him lacking something. Until that gaze found Emmeline. Then it seemed to light up, not with warmth, but definitely with interest.

"Hello," Bastion greeted the newcomer cheerfully. "What can I get for you?"

"Whatever you have on tap," the man said. Em grabbed her tray off the bar simply to have something in her hands to hide a sudden tremor. His voice was just above a baritone and held a skiff of an accent she couldn't immediately identify. It was all kinds of seductive.

Bastion winked at Em as he turned to grab a beer mug. Emmeline looked at the stage with a sinking feeling in her gut. Of all the nights for her to relent and give Sam what he'd been asking for. It would be just her luck that a demigod of sex would be sitting in the room while she made her debut.

She turned back to the bar. "Hey Bastion, where's Sam?" She could feel the stranger's gaze crawl down her profile, then lower and her body responded. Every cell leapt to full quivering attention. She was sure that, if they could have, her ovaries would have jumped up and waved at him.

"I think he's in his office," Bastion said as he lifted the mug to the tap.

Em gave him a nod, set her tray down, and took off for the door tucked behind the stage. She hurried down the hallway, past the washroom doors, the dressing room door right behind the stage, to the last door on the left. Sam's office. His door was standing open. She rapped her knuckles on the door frame, then stepped into the room after he waved her forward with a smile.

The middle-aged, balding, overweight man was behind his old wood desk, talking on his cell phone. "Hey, I'm gonna need to call you back," he said, then set the phone down. "Em." He tapped the screen on his phone. "Shouldn't you be getting ready?"