Making Love To Death (One Night With Death) (4 page)

But this time, Emma seemed to be lagging behind and
falling out of fashion—and into love. Brett had stayed past
two seasons, and it didn't look like he was on his way out. She
should have dumped him by now, but he was still in. And he was still
in her.

Sickening bastard.

What did she see in him?

There was everything to hate about him. He was rich,
handsome, successful, divorced, and he worked in the same firm as
Emma. They saw each other every freaking day! And too many nights.

This guy had got to go.

And Death would take care of that.

Brett was now cradling Emma's face in his hands as he
continued fucking her, but he was taking her gently and slowly now.
Death almost couldn't bear to watch them. Their love-making looked
almost sweet and tender, completely different from those past wild,
lust-filled exploits that he had witnessed in her bedroom. Emma had
her arms wrapped around his neck, and she raked her fingers through
his salt-and-pepper hair as she pushed her hips up to meet his
thrusts.

“
Oh, Brett,” she panted, grinding more
urgently against him.

“
Emma,” he whispered. “Emma, I love
you.”

She gasped and stared up into his eyes. But her reply
was wrenched away by her climax and she only threw back her head to
scream his name as she came.

Brett doubled his efforts, driving himself deep and hard
into her. But he wasn't giving up. As she quivered in his arms, he
persisted, “Move in with me, Emma.”

His words smashed into Death like a sledgehammer. This
guy was even more cunning and manipulative than he had given him
credit for. He was making his moves on Emma, while his cock was
still twitching and moving inside her. Emma was spread wide open
beneath him, pinned down, exposed and completely bared to him.
And—for the first time, Death noticed that the bastard wasn't
wearing a condom.

He was planning to shoot his cum straight into Emma's
womb.

Just like Death had done. Death had been the first and
only man to spill his seed into Emma. All her subsequent lovers had
worn protection.

Jealousy, wrath, crushing agony—every tormented,
excruciating, ripping emotion speared through Death and detonated in
his mind like a million bombs. In that explosive instant, he simply
lost it. He lost everything, his mind, his senses, his heart.

He had been perched at the edge of the penthouse window
as a sleek, black raven but now he reverted to his full, human form.
The black feathers swirled into a hooded cloak, and his muscular form
took shape under the flowing cloak as he smashed through the glass
windows and into the bedroom.

Emma screamed.

Brett jerked up, the bliss on his face congealing into
horror. He had been on the brink of releasing his sperm into Emma
when his window had shattered with a blood-curdling roar and a shadow
had swooped into his bedroom. The shadow reared up into a tall,
cloaked figure, and under the hood, blue eyes burnt like intense
flames.

“
What the—” Brett shouted, pushing
himself up to confront the intruder. Death saw that Brett's penis
was shrinking as rapidly as his panic was rising. “Who are
you? How did you...” Brett glanced at the skyline as seen
from his twenty-seventh floor apartment that was now framed by his
shattered window. “I...I'm calling security and you'll be in
so much trouble, young man. Pulling a stunt like that.” Brett
grabbed his trousers from a chair and fumbled around the pockets for
his phone while trying to step into those trousers at the same time.
He failed at both tasks. “You'll be charged with trespass,
assault, outrage of modesty...”

Death cut his ice-blue eyes to Emma. She had scrambled
out of bed and had managed to grab Brett's crumpled white shirt off
the floor and thrown it on. She looked incredibly sexy in that long
shirt with her hair tumbling over her shoulders. Death felt desire
flare in him, but seeing her in Brett's shirt and smelling his scent
all over her was like a knife twisting in his gut. Her face was
still flushed from her recent orgasm, the orgasm that this cowering
bastard had given her.

Death took a step towards Brett and wrenched the phone
from his trembling hands. Brett stared up into his hood, and met his
cold, furious eyes. Brett's eyes widened as he backed away.
“Wh-what are you?”

Death smirked and lowered his hood. His blond hair was
tousled and shone unnaturally bright in the dim bedroom. He knew he
looked younger than Brett, even though he was older, eons older. He
was ageless, timeless and merciless. And to those who had the
fortune, or misfortune, of staring him in the face, he looked
indescribably beautiful.

“
I am Death.”

Brett seemed to have been struck speechless by his
reply. He simply opened and closed his mouth repeatedly, gulping and
making small, incoherent noises at the back of his throat.

Brett shook his head wordlessly as Death advanced
towards him. His gaze was becoming unfocused and teary. Silently,
Death raised his hand high above him, throwing a long, dark shadow
across the room.

“
No!” Emma screamed at him, and Death
looked up to meet her eyes at the very instant that he struck the
fatal blow.

Brett crumpled to the floor, like a puppet with his
strings cut. Death still had his arm raised, like the puppeteer
holding the severed strings and waving them inanely above the fallen
subject.

“
No!”

Emma came flying at him, shoving him forcefully away and
gathering Brett's lifeless, naked body in her arms. But it was too
late. The deed was done.

She turned her tear-streaked face to him at last, and
the raw hate in her eyes made him stagger back. “You!”
she said in a fierce, ragged whisper. “Why? Why have you come
back? Why? Just who do you think you are? And no.” She held
up a hand. “Please don't lie to me. Don't tell me you were
just doing your job. I know. It wasn't his time. Brett was fit and
healthy. He wasn't on any medication. His heart was fine. He
didn't just have a heart-attack while having sex with me. You...you
killed him. You killed him!” she spat.

“
Emma, it's not...that wasn't meant...” He
couldn't face her. “I—I...”

“
Get out! Get the fuck out of here! Leave me
alone, and don't come back! Ever!”

“
Emma...”

“
I said get out! You've been gone for so long, so
why come back now? Just go! And stay away...far, far away from me.”
She collapsed into sobs.

Death stared at the back of her head. It would have
been better if she had slapped him, hit him, clawed his eyeballs out.
Instead she had simply turned away. She had turned away completely,
and perhaps forever, from him, and buried her face in Brett's chest,
pressing her wet cheek against a still warm but unbeating heart. He
wanted so much to stroke her long hair, brush the tears from her face
and hold her tight in his arms. He hated to see her like this, on
her knees, crying. But he knew that this time, he was the one who
had caused her pain. She was right. It wasn't his job. He had
taken Brett's life because...because he loved her.

Silently, he backed towards the broken window.

What had he done? What had he become?

He used to be Death.

But now he was worse than death. He had become a
monster, a demon. Someone dangerous to Emma.

With one last look at Emma and the tears that she had
shed glistening on the dead man's chest, he turned and dived out the
window into the night.

Emma read and re-read some of the old emails that Brett
had sent her. He used to send her emails on matters ostensibly
related to work, but he was good with words and beneath the official
tone of his emails, there was always a subtle sexual innuendo. It
had been their little secret. No one in the office knew that they
were sleeping together.

One by one she deleted his emails. She had mourned him
and missed him, but he was gone and he wasn't coming back. It had
been five months since he died and all his files and clients had been
taken over by another partner. To her surprise, his ex-wife had been
appointed the executor of his estate and she had seen to his funeral
arrangements with businesslike efficiency. She had been polite
enough to Emma. She knew that Emma was with Brett when he died.
Emma had given her statement to the police, and it was all over in a
couple of days. No foul play was suspected and the cause of death
was determined to be sudden cardiac arrest. There was really nothing
left to do or hold on to. They hadn't dated for that long, and he
obviously trusted his ex-wife a lot more than he trusted her.

Emma sighed. Would she have grown to love him, given
time? Maybe. Maybe not. Probably not. For nine years, she had
dated extensively but she had never fallen in love. She had given
her heart and her virginity away a long, long time ago.

She clicked through the rest of Brett's emails and
deleted them all. There was still a ton of work to do and it was
best to get out of her head and just get down to it. Moping and
wallowing never did anyone any good.

Emma tried to buzz her secretary again. “Come on,
Suzie,” she huffed. “Where is that girl?”

Emma pushed back from her desk in frustration and strode
to the door. Suzie had always been very prompt and efficient, and
she was hardly ever away from her desk. Even when Emma sent her on
an errand, she would be back in the shortest possible time. Emma
yanked open the door and stuck her head out. “Suz—”

There was no one at the desk.

Suzie's computer was still on and she hadn't logged out.
There was a steaming mug of tea on her desk. Emma frowned. Where
did she go? A toilet or pantry break shouldn't take that long.

She was about to duck back into her office when it hit
her. Emma cocked her head and listened hard. There it was. No, not
the sound. In fact, there was no sound. No quiet hum of the central
air-conditioning, no occasional chatter from the secretaries, no
clicking on computer keyboards, no footsteps, no sound at all. Just
a frozen, eerie silence.

The whole floor seemed to have been emptied out.

Emptied out of life and time. Everything had stopped.

Emma exhaled the shuddering breath that she had been
holding. Shakily, she backed into her office and her office door
whispered shut right in front of her rounded eyes. She didn't bother
trying to open it. She knew it would be locked. She had heard the
click and that soft step behind her.

“
I thought I told you to stay away from me,”
she hissed, not turning around.

“
And we both know that I can never do that,”
came the low, quiet reply.

“
Why? Oh, right, I forgot. You're Death. It's
your job to cause pain and misery, so you have to make your unwelcome
presence felt and mess up our happy lives.” Emma narrowed her
eyes as she pivoted round slowly to face him. But the sneer left her
face when she set eyes on him.

He was still as devilishly handsome and as sexy as
before. She glimpsed his toned, tanned physique under his cloak as
he moved towards her. But his eyes—they were no longer the
clear, shimmering blue of the sky. The light and laughter were gone
from his blue eyes. In their place were swirling, tormented pools of
black. He was still tall and imposing, but he wore a haunted, hunted
look.

“
What...what happened to you?” Her resolve
to hate him faltered as she took a step towards him.

He laughed, and it was a harsh, bitter sound.

“
What happened? Did you forget, Emma? I killed
someone,” he growled, the shadows darkening under his eyes.

She looked down.

“
I killed someone you love.”

She jerked her head up, and stared into his dark,
tortured eyes. “I didn't love him,” she whispered at
last.

For a timeless moment, they just stood in the middle of
her office facing each other. Finally, she surfaced to breathe and
blink, and immediately he reached out to grab her.

He crushed her to him, hugging her like he would never
let her go. Emma gasped but she didn't fight him. She had been
struggling with all these strange, conflicting emotions and dreams
for so many months and years. She just didn't want to fight her own
heart anymore. She had tried to deny her feelings, but they were
growing too powerful and too painful.

She had always had the feeling that Death was near her,
watching her, waiting for her. But he had never shown himself.
Until that night. That night Brett died.

When she saw him again, her heart almost stopped. For
so many nights and months and years, she had longed to see him again.
Just for once, just for one night, just for one moment. But he
never came back. He had taken her in her blood-soaked bed nine years
ago, and she never saw him again. But of course, he was Death so not
seeing him was a good thing, right?
Just k
eep telling
yourself that, Emma.
Her head told her that she should be
thankful that Death stayed away from her, but her traitorous heart
ached for him. He had made love to her the night he came to take her
life, and he had left her—alive. More alive than she had ever
felt in a long, long while. He had shown her the sinful, delicious
pleasures of the flesh and how intensely one could love and live.
She craved his touch, his kiss, his rock hard body. She had been
trying to find that same touch, trying to ignite that spark and
inferno. She'd had many lovers through the years, but no one had
come close.