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Oh, shit, dinner!
I whip back around to the stove just in time to salvage the vegetables I chopped up, which are starting to burn in the skillet.
“Smells good,” Lucas rumbles behind me, amusement coloring his voice.
“Glad to hear it. Hungry?”
I refuse to be embarrassed for staring at a man who had the audacity to come to dinner without his shirt. There are all sorts of reasons why I would stare at that. It’s rude, for one thing, probably unsanitary… and good God, is ithot.
“Starving,” he tells me, his deep voice almost like a purr.
As I add the salmon to the vegetables and finish cooking it all up, I find myself wondering if that quality to his voice is natural or not. Either way, I like it—maybe a little too much.
When the food is done, I load the plates briskly, keeping every hint of sensuality out of my movements. That’s my intention, anyway, but when I turn around, I find Lucas watching me intently, warm, dark thoughts glinting behind his eyes. He’s holding a bottle of wine and two glasses.
“Thirsty?” he asks with a hint of irony.
Parched.
“Sure, thanks.”
I set the plates on the table as he puts down the glasses and pulls out a chair for me. I settle into a seat, my skin prickling as his hands brush the backs of my shoulders as he releases his grip on the chair. Grabbing the bottle, he pours wine for each of us.
“I think we could both use a drink or three after a day like this,” he says as he takes his seat. He lifts his glass and touches it lightly to mine. “To Carlin. The most loyal, discreet, and stupidly brave pilot a man—or demon—could ask for.”
“To Carlin,” I say somberly. We drink, and silence falls over the table as I chew my lower lip, ignoring my food for the moment despite the fact that I’m starving. “Did he know? I mean, he must have knownsomethingto react the way he did. But I mean, did he know about you?”
Lucas nods, pauses, then shrugs one shoulder. “He knew a lot. He’s been with me since he was twenty-one, fresh out of flight school. He’s seen and heard a lot, and I’ve told him some things flat out for his own protection. He wasn’t the curious type. Born and raised during the ‘Loose Lips Sink Ships’ era, and he took those words to heart.”
I nearly choke on my fish. “World War Two?”
Lucas nods, seemingly unaware of the furious mental math I’m doing. Carlin must have been damn near a hundred years old, and he’s been with Lucas since he was twenty-one? Seventy, eighty years? I look at Lucas a little more closely. He doesn’t look a day over thirty-five, and that’s high balling it.
“So, um, I guess he’s used to combat, then? Although I don’t think anybody could really get used to being attacked by flying lizard… dragon… beetle things in mid-air. Or on the ground, for that matter.”
I’m babbling, I know it, but I’m too busy internalizing the fact that the immortal demon I’ve been lusting after has been immortal for a long time. Probably even longer than I’m imagining now.
Lucas shakes his head. “He was never in the war. He was too young. Well, he was never in the human’s war. World War II was a consequence of a much larger conflict. When the upper and lower planes go to battle, the fighting tends to happen in the middle.”
Finally picking up my fork, I take a few slow, thoughtful bites of my vegetables. “Heaven and Hell? And the wars are waged on Earth. I feel like I’ve heard preachers go on about that, but I thought they were speaking metaphorically—or at least in some unseen spiritual sort of way.”
A wry, somewhat bitter smirk curves Lucas’s lips. “I’m sure that’s what they thought they were doing, too. Preaching that ‘spiritual warfare’ means the evil temptations of strip clubs and casinos. Even the faithful can’t bring themselves to imagine the truth.”
“Because it’s terrifying,” I point out.
He shakes his head. “Because it’s complicated. Modern humans prefer a good versus evil, black and white fantasy over a messy reality. They take the stories, organize the players, sterilize the tapestry, and feel as though they know the truth. ‘Heaven good, Hell bad, and all of it revolves around us humans.’”
I’m tempted to be offended by his characterization of humanity, but the audacity of those statements strikes me, and my nose scrunches as I chuckle, “Is that really what they preach?”
He cocks his head at me curiously. “You haven’t been to church much, have you?”
I shake my head as I reply. “Mom was terrified of churches. She swore up and down that Lucifer would steal her kids if she went to church.”
“I would not,” he shoots back, then chuckles sardonically. “Hm. Well, shit, guess I already have.”
My jaw falls halfway open in shock, and I stare at him, dumbfounded and a little terrified. I narrow my eyes, my heart racing. “That’s not funny, you know.”
He looks at me, banked heat burning in his eyes. “I thought you wanted to come.”
