shiny, Maybelline-enhanced lips, and sent me a pleading look as she leaned into his personal space. "So, when you get tired of him, can I have him?"
"No."
"Trade you a date with Johnny Depp."
"Cherise, you don't have a date with Johnny Depp."
She sniffed. "Well, I could. If I wanted. So I suppose the arrival of Mr. Hottie means we're not going shopping."
"Would you go shopping if he showed up for you?"
"You're kidding, right? I would have shopping surgically removed from my system. And you know how much of a commitment that is for me." Cherise gave me a preoccupied kind of smile, tearing her attention away from David for about point oh two seconds, and finally heaved a theatrical sigh. "I suppose I'll just have to go abuse my credit rating all by myself. Although I plan to shop heavily, and it would be handy to have some nice, strong man to carry my-"
"Go," I said. She lifted an elegantly sculpted shoulder and flip-flopped off toward her red convertible, hips swaying, alien tattoo doing a funky hula to the motion. Yeah. She'd be carrying her own bags, sure. When hell opened a hockey rink.
"Did I interrupt something?" David asked, and moved back into kissing distance again. "I know how seriously you take a mall visit. Wouldn't want to stand in your way."
He was teasing me. I leaned in, too, brushed his lips with mine, and stared deep into his burning bronze eyes. Teasing could go both ways.
His pupils widened and drank me in.
"The mall doesn't open until ten," I whispered into his parted lips. "Plenty of time."
His kiss took control and dissolved me into sparkles and tingles and a massive surge of heat. Damp, urgent, passionate lips, demanding my full attention. I felt myself collapsing against him, wanting badly to be horizontal somewhere with a lockable door. Jesus, he made my whole body shake.
"I missed you," he said, and his voice had gone low and rough, hiding in the back of his throat. His thumbs caressed my cheekbones, drawing lines of heat like tattoos.
"Show me."
"Right here?" He looked pointedly down at the gravel, asphalt, and thin grass.
"Looks uncomfortable. Then again, I remember how much you like public displays of affection."
"Beast."
Those eyebrows went up again, dangerously high. His smile turned dark. "Oh, you really don't want to know how true that is."
I felt a tiny little tremor inside. Sometimes, David could be like a pet tiger-glorious and terrible. He wasn't just a sweet-natured, nice, agreeable guy, although he was certainly capable of being that. It was just that he was capable of anything. Everything. Djinn weren't fluffy little bunnies you kept as pets, they were dangerous. David was gentle with me, I knew that. But sometimes, occasionally, I would see the vast, dark depths underneath, and I'd get dizzy and breathless.
And hot. Dear God. Spontaneous-combustion hot.
He knew, of course. I saw it flash in his eyes.
I said, "I'm not afraid, you know."
His hands-everything about him-went still. Wind brushed over us with curious hands, ruffling my hair, belling his coat. It tasted of ocean. Palm trees rustled and shook out their fronds over our heads.
"Maybe you should be. You don't know enough about me."
Well, he was right. He'd live for eons. He'd seen human civilizations rise and fall. I barely knew a fraction of who David was, and what he was.
Sometimes I just forgot.
"Try me," I said. Cherise's glitter-bright flirting had reminded me, with a chill, that I wasn't some sweet young girl anymore, and next thing I knew I'd be buying in the Women's World section where dowdy clothes go to die. Reading Modern Maturity. Learning to tat lace and make scrapple. I wanted to know David.
I wanted this to be something bigger and deeper and forever, or as far as my forever could go. "If we're going to stay together, then you can't just show me your good side, you know. And I mean it. I'm not afraid."
He looked uncommonly solemn, and he didn't blink. There was a hint of the tiger in those eyes again. "I don't think you understand what you're saying."
I heaved out a sigh. "Of course I don't understand. Everything about the Djinn is one big, dark, booga-booga secret, and just because I've been one doesn't mean I got the operating manual-"
He stilled my lips with