His Grace Read online

  To allow the program to violate every bit of her personal life.

  Suddenly my mind turned it into sex. To my throwing her down, ripping off her clothing, and having my way with her. I wanted to possess her and be inside of her, to listen her cry out as her nails dug into my skin. The very thought of that caused a tightening in my pants.

  I bit the inside of my mouth, resisting the urge, but there was a little voice at the back of my mind.

  Maybe I should do that.

  “Wallet,” she barked at me, shaking her hand. “I have to get to my job.”

  “Miss. Williams, are you aware that you’ve slept with three of my brothers, in my club?” I asked.

  That knocked her off balance. The hand wavered, then lowered slowly. She frowned at me.

  “You adopted?” she asked.

  Why so angry?

  “No, why would you think that?” I asked.

  And then it dawned on me. I winced just slightly and stood, buttoning my suit jacket as I stood.

  We all looked different. Mike looked like he was from Ireland, Ralph appeared to be Nordic of decent, Gabe was African.

  Myself, I was modelled after the Italian families. I had been told in the past that I had ‘the nose’ which was apparently Italian, but I haven’t a clue what they meant. I did have a wider jaw and more of a squared face than the others. My skin colour was perpetually olive in colour, my hair was naturally curly. I tended to keep it short unless it was stylish to have it longer. My hair was, at that moment, just short enough that it didn’t quite curl. That curl allowed for a great deal of body.

  Modern hair gel was a marvel. Kept my hair up and out of my eyes while not looking like I had slicked it back with gel.

  “Different mothers,” I said finally.

  “One of you is awfully dark for that,” she said.

  I shrugged.

  “Judge not, Father says.”

  “Oh, judge not? Really? He says that? Does he also say something about keeping my wallet?”

  I wondered how many others had betrayed and used her to make her feel and think like that.

  Grace didn’t have a history with abusers, but I wondered what I would find if I had really looked into her foster parents. Sometimes one child survived untouched, but witnessed the abuse of another. She had learned that response from somewhere.

  “Finders keepers, I believe you are referring to,” I responded, opening my desk drawer to pull out the little card holder. “This? This is not a wallet. This is a card holder that you put your cards into. This is then supposed to go into a purse. That way, it’s easier to find your cards. This is not supposed to be your whole wallet.”

  “Are you done?” she asked haughtily.

  Oh, how I wanted to bend her over my desk.

  Instead, I walked around the desk, the card holder still in my hand. I perched on the edge of my desk and held the item out to her.

  As she reached for it, the hair on the back of my neck stood on end. A tremble of something flowed up my hand, through my arm and spread through my chest as she tugged the card holder out of my hand. Like static electricity was crawling up my hand.

  As she tucked the wallet into her back pocket, I reached out with that hand.

  The tips of my fingers moved across her cheek, up and over her ear as if to tuck away a stray hair, and then off again. I had needed to touch her, to feel her under my fingers and to know that she truly existed. While the motion was a little bold, it did not necessarily cross a boundary.

  I think.

  The touch was necessary, however. It created a physical connection but showed her that I wasn’t going to cross that line. Us being together was not like her and the others. I was not going to have sex with her, not if I could help it.

  Yeah, like I believe that.

  Sex was the best tool, absolutely, but with the right care and a touch at the proper moment, I could toss out a demon that hadn’t quite crawled in yet.

  She wasn’t my usual type. I went for the beautiful and vain ones because they wouldn’t care whether I dumped them or not. They moved on to the next man just as quickly as I moved on to the next woman.

  If I bedded this one, she would be upset when I eventually left her. It would be inevitable, as we had to remain hidden from mortals. No one could know our secrets, and if she stayed around too long, she would figure it out.

  I would break her heart and leave a bitter streak to her that would never quite fade away.

  “I would like to extend a dinner invitation,” I said after that long silence as I considered her.

  I found myself craving the flavour of her flesh. I wanted to know how she reacted as I trailed my fingers down her sides, how she moaned as my lips and teeth nipped at her breasts.

  My breath quickened, I had to swallow several times as I caught my eyes on her chest for a fraction of a moment too long for it to be polite. I forced my eyes upward and met Grace’s annoyed look.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Hm?” I asked, struggling to recall what I had said.

  I just kept picturing her tackling me to the floor and having her way with me. Moaning over me as her nails dug into the muscles of my chest and she crested into her orgasm slowly.

  What is wrong with me?

  “Dinner,” she said, jabbing a finger upward. “My eyes are up here.”

  “I’m sorry, I’ve had a long day,” I said, pushing off the desk to walk back around it. “They look soft and pillowy and are reminding me of how exhausted I am. I meant nothing by it. Just picturing pillows.”

  “On my chest?” she asked.

  “No, not on your chest,” I said, a flush coming over me.

  I had been caught and was embarrassed over being caught. Taking my seat once more, I folded my hands and set them on my desk.

  “Dinner?” she asked.

  She could have just dismissed herself, but she remained. Not because I had insisted or suggested it, but out of curiosity. Perhaps she wanted to know what was going on just as much as we did.

  “Yes, sorry, tonight at my place. If that would work for you, I can send my man to come pick you up.”

  “Me? By myself?” she asked. “With you and your three brothers, who I apparently slept with?”

  “Yes,” I said, playing dumb.

  It was of course manipulation. I was going to act like inviting Lilly wasn’t my idea. If I made it my idea, she would say no to it.

  I was going to allow her to lead herself near it, then suggest she bring a friend, not who to bring, just a friend.

  “I’ve seen enough porn to know what you want,” she said, folding her arms.

  “I’m sorry?” I asked.

  That was not what was supposed to happen. My surprise was genuine as she glowered down at me.

  “If you want to have sex with me, let’s just do it now. Why invite me to dinner first? So you can all gang bang me on the dining room table? I’m not that kind of girl. I’m not even the sleep with others kind of girl, that’s not what I normally do. And if you think I’m going to sleep with you just because you invite me to your fancy mansion, you’ve got another thing coming!”

  “Close, but not quite,” I said slowly.

  “What?” she asked.

  “Well,” I said, then hesitated and sucked in a sharp breath. “My brothers aren’t that guy either, none of them are. Yet, all three were drawn to you. I do hope something will happen tonight, but it is not a gang bang, nor sex. My brothers and I are all single. It is rare that we find a woman we’d want to see more than once, let alone one that we all like. I proposed dinner to give you a chance to consider us as something more, I suppose.”

  “No sex,” she said.

  “Not tonight, and certainly not if you don’t want to,” I said. “In fact, if it would make you feel better, why not invite a friend to come with you? My man can pick you both up at your apartment tonight. He will bring you to my place and back to yours.”

  She hesitated for just a moment.
“You said ‘us,’ not ‘them,’ and you were just staring at my boobs.”

  I made a small, embarrassed sound. It was rare that a human could surprise me like that. Most wouldn’t have caught my wording things in just such a way. If they did consciously hear the word, typically they assumed they heard it wrong, not that I had had a slip of the tongue.

  “Well?” she asked.

  Why was she still there, demanding answers? Was she interested in me? Wasn’t I too far out of her league?

  What kind of backbone did this woman have?

  And where did I get one?

  I bit my tongue, reminding myself that I had had an instantaneous reaction to her. A craving to possess her that became worse the closer I came to her physically. It was possible that she picked up on my need and was reacting to it.

  I had already yelled at Mike about ignoring her advances. I tried not to growl at the idea of being in a relationship with the woman for long-term care.

  Call me vain, cruel, or any number of other names, but I didn’t want to be involved with the woman.

  She was too cute, too kind, too good to the world. All I would do was break her to pieces, and there’d be no one left to put those pieces back together. I was no good for a woman like her.

  She deserved better than the shell of a man that I had become.

  “Dinner,” I said finally. “That’s all I promise from me. Good food and good company.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  I took in a slow breath, cycling through the excuses I had made for others like her in the past. Finally, I settled on the truth.

  “Look, a long time ago, someone stomped on my heart, ripped it out, and took it with them. I haven’t got any love left to give, and I don’t expect any woman to put up with that. I’d strongly suggest that you look to my brothers.”

  “And if I choose you, instead?”

  “I’m not a good match for you,” I said.

  Her eyes moved down, then back up to meet my own. For the first time since she stepped into my office, she smiled, and I swear my heart stopped. There was something secretive, yet challenging about that smile as she turned and walked away. I stared after her, unable to come up with words.

  “You can pick us up at my place,” she said as she stopped by the door.

  Turning back to me, her smile spread to show her teeth.

  “I like white wine,” she said.

  “I will be sure to tell my cook to prepare something that goes well with white wine,” I said, surprised at how steady my voice was.

  “Oh, when is dinner?” she asked.

  “Six,” I managed to get out.

  “Okay, I’ll see you then, Mr. Angelica.”

  “Sam,” I said. “My name is Sam.”

  “Of course, Mr. Angelica,” she said before she slipped out of my office and closed the door behind her.

  It took me a moment, in the silence of my office, to regain my composure. I rubbed my face and scrunched up my eyes, then sighed and turned to my computer.

  Up came her phone’s history, which was pretty well nothing more than a navigation app and an e-reading app. The woman read anything she could find for free, plus more. She had a subscription service to several e-book retailers and had racked up an impressive page count.

  There was no way that I could educate myself on her habits by reading what she had read. To read that many books would take a great deal of time, which I did not have.

  I checked into the genres, but even that wasn’t helpful because she read anything she could get her hands on. Her e-reader had an entire list of classical books which she hadn’t touched yet. It seemed all she did was collect those.

  Mike walked into my office unannounced.

  “What?” I demanded, keeping focused on my screen.

  “I just saw Grace on her way out, is it a go?” he asked carefully. “Because she didn’t seem interested at all. She was completely disengaged.”

  “She’s coming. She’s bringing a friend. She did not commit to bringing the witch, but I still hope it will happen.”

  “Sam?” Mike asked.

  Growling, I pulled away from my screen and looked at him. He flinched and took a step back. He motioned to the air, around us, then seemed to sigh. He was struggling to come up with what he wanted to say.

  “What, Mike?”

  “I know something is wrong. You’re making me very uncomfortable. I’d like to keep this skin on. Unless I did it, could you please tone it down some?”

  I straightened in my chair and just watched him. He frowned back at me, then his eyebrows raised.

  “No,” he said.

  “Maybe she only likes the new,” I said, trying to come up with an excuse.

  “I’ll let Gabe and Ralph know. We’ll have to pull out all of our stops. The whole, can’t stop thinking about you, please choose me thing. You just stay out of her way.”

  “I know how to turn off a woman,” I snapped.

  “Okay, but turn off yourself first. You keep that up, and you’ll end up killing someone.”

  “Which means we bury a body or two,” I said. “Not the first time.”

  “If you kill her, we’ll never find out what is going on with the demons,” Mike said. “Do what you need to do, but get yourself under control. She’s long gone. Grace is not her. She’s cute and adorable and barely sexual at all. I mean, that woman is easy to please, you could probably look at her the way you get sometimes, and she’d just come from the gratitude of male attention. Nothing like her.”

  “Thank you, for trying, Mike.”

  I watched Mike leave and sighed out. Of all the things to be honest about, my need for that woman was not one of them. They would never understand what it was like to look at a human and just need her. Ralph and Gabe had had lovers before, but they had only done it in an attempt to fit in, like a bad habit. They weren’t capable of loving a mortal, not with their whole heart.

  I pulled up the security footage for my office and watched the entire thing on silent. As she smiled, I grimaced and looked away.

  Not because I was disgusted with her. I was disgusted with my reaction, which was just as strong the second time as it had been the first time. I wanted to touch her once more, wanted to put my tongue and mouth on her.

  Why couldn’t I stop thinking about sex with her?

  Women were more than just sex. If I wanted to catch her attention above—

  No, no, that was a stupid idea.

  I slammed my hand onto my desk and stood up, walking away from my computer in annoyance. I had to think about something else, focus on something else, anything else. My life would not revolve around a woman, not for any period. It was the others who went to bed with them.

  I was the last option. I was the sharp knife in the night, the one who put a permanent end to demonic possession.

  Oh, I’d bed and have the vain, beautiful women who were just a step away from demons. But I wouldn’t be with a real woman. I didn’t trust myself with them.

  Pacing my office, I struggled to control myself.

  It wouldn’t do any good to walk into a dinner with Grace and a witch while I was irritated. I had to let off steam somehow, but there were no known demons.

  What did men do to work off some extra energy in the modern day?

  Hit the gym.

  I stopped and looked around my office. There was no more work that I had to absolutely do that day. Which meant that it was a simple solution.

  I collected my phone and wallet and left my office, stopping by my secretary’s desk.

  Mary was well past middle aged. She peered up at me with slightly foggy eyes, above a set of reading glasses.

  It was time to fix her eyes again.

  In the meantime, that meant that we took our time. I paused in front of my desk as she looked up at me, aware that she knew exactly who I was, but I was hesitating to make certain. She would never tell us that her eyes were failing, it may have been a decade since she could see us clearl
y, but she was too proud to admit it.

  I watched her peer at me, and decided not to bring it up right then. It always caused a fight, and I didn’t want to spend my week worrying about fighting with her and Grace.

  “Keep my calls to yourself. I’m going out to the gym.”

  “I think you mean take messages,” she said to her monitor before she turned to me slowly and looked over her glasses at me in a disapproving fashion. “I saw that woman go out of here. She stinks of demon spawn.”

  “I’m working on it,” I said.

  “If one of your brothers let her walk out of their office like that, you would have taken the hose to them,” she said sternly.

  “Mary, damn it.”

  She meant sex, that I should have had sex with her. Should have bent Grace over my desk and fucked her until she came, then did it again for good measure.

  The comment was not helping my thought process.

  “Don’t make an old woman immortal, sweetie, unless you want to hear her bitch at you constantly. I tell you at least once a century,” she said with a shake of her head.

  “I can still give back the arthritis,” I snapped.

  “Not if you want a gym membership by the time you arrive,” she said as she turned back to her monitor. “You keep me around because it’d be a pain to retrain a new mortal every twenty years.

  “Why don’t you just scoot off? During the dinner you’re having, think dirty, dirty thoughts.”

  “That’s not funny.”

  “Should I send you some porn? She was plainer than your usual fare.”

  “I won’t be needing porn, thank you.”

  “Do you need a prostitute? Too eager is just as bad as not eager enough.”

  “Mary.”

  “It’s been a while since I had to clean skank out of the building. I notice things like that. You’d best get going if you want to get a good workout in before dinner. You do need to oversee the setup. Otherwise, Mike will fill the building with plants again.”

  “Ugh,” I said. “Fine, I’m going. No prostitutes!”

  “How about a stripper?” she called after me.

  “No!” I shouted over my shoulder.

  I applied lipstick while Lilly leaned over my shoulder, peering at her reflection as she played with her hair.