Free Charley Davidson 01Bis For I Have Sinned by Darynda Jones Page A

filling a need so deep, so visceral, it consumed every inch of my being. The raw yearning that lingered in the distance rushed forward to pool between my legs. It swelled like a tide, milking me, coaxing me ever closer.
    My fingernails dug into his wrist, suddenly remembering he didn’t want to be there. Not with me. Not after what I’d done. “Reyes, wait.”
    I felt it the moment it seized him, felt it quake and convulse through his body, and in an instant an explosion burst and shot through me, sending a sharp sting of pleasure ricocheting against my bones, coursing through my veins, searing my flesh with a scalding ecstasy.
    And then the world came crashing in as the violence of an orgasm splitting me in two jolted me from a fitful sleep. The dying remnants of a scream echoed in the room, and I knew instantly it was my own reaction to the climax. I forced myself to pause, to catch my breath, to unclench my fists from around the coffee cup that had emptied its contents in my lap. Luckily, there wasn’t much left. I put the cup on a side table then I fell back onto the sofa and threw an arm over my forehead to wait out the familiar storm trembling through my body.
    Three times in one week. Within seconds of closing my eyes, he’d be there, waiting, watching, angry and seductive.
    I glanced at the clock again. The last time I’d looked, it really did say 3:35. Now it said 3:38. Three minutes. I’d closed my eyes three minutes ago.
    With an exhausted sigh, I realized it was my own fault. I’d let myself drift.
    Maybe this was Reyes’s way of making me pay for what I’d done. He’d always been able to leave his body, to become incorporeal and wreak all kinds of havoc on humanity. Not that he actually wreaked havoc, but he could’ve had he wanted to. Now, he was stuck in his body. A minor indiscretion if you asked me, and when I bound him, a necessary one.
    But now he was back to haunting my dreams. At least when he’d entered my dreams before, I actually got some sleep between rounds of hide and seek and tug of war. Now, I close my eyes for a second and he’s there in the most intense way possible. As long as I’m asleep, we’re going at it like rabbits on a bunny farm.
    And the worst part of the whole thing lay in the fact that he really was pissed as hell at me. As a result, he had no desire to be there. He was angry, consumed with rage, and yet oh, so passionate, like he couldn’t help himself. Like he couldn’t control the heat coursing through him, the hunger in his veins. I couldn’t exactly control myself either, so I knew how he felt.
    But I’d summoned him? Impossible. How could I have summoned him growing up? Like that time I was four and I was almost kidnapped by a convicted child molester? I didn’t even know what he was. I’d been scared of him.
    Just then I heard my front door crash open and decided it was time to clean up anyway. Coffee never felt as good on the outside.
    “What? Where are you?” I heard my neighbor who moonlighted as my receptionist and best friend say as she stumbled into my apartment. Cookie’s short black hair stuck out in all kinds of socially unacceptable directions. And she wore wrinkled pajamas, striped in alternating blues and yellows that fit tight around her robust middle half with long red socks that bunched around her ankles. She was such a challenge.
    “I’m here,” I said, hoisting myself off the sofa. “Everything’s okay.”
    “But you screamed.” Alarmed, she scanned the area.
    “We really need to sound proof these walls.” She lived right across the hall and could apparently hear a feather drop in my kitchen.
    After taking a moment to catch her breath, she leveled a cold stare on me. “Charley, damn it.”
    “You know, I get called that a lot,” I said, padding toward the bathroom, “but Charley Damn It’s not really my name.”
    She stepped toward my bookcase and braced herself with one hand while the other tried to still her beating