2

I intend to live forever. So far, so good.

—T-SHIRT

The world slowed, as it had so many times before, the instant the sound of the gun going off reached me. I realized then that when Tidwell grabbed for it, he’d pushed it until it was pointed directly at my heart.

Naturally.

Because where else would it be pointed?

I had been charging forward, but when the world slowed, I decelerated and watched the bullet burst out of the barrel of Cookie’s pistol, mere inches away from me, with a puff of fire behind it. It traveled straight toward my chest as I reared back.

But time was different here. Gravity didn’t work quite the same. The laws of physics broke. As the bullet crept forward, I tried to shift my weight away from the projectile rocketing toward me, but it seemed like all I could do was stare at it.

From my periphery, I could see the beginnings of panic in many of the patrons’ faces. Some were in the middle of raising an arm to duck and cover. Some were still oblivious, looking on with only mild concern. And some, cops mostly, jumped into action, their expressions calm as their training took over.

The bullet kept coming, centimeter by centimeter, the air behind it rippling with friction. I needed more time. To figure out what to do. To figure out how to dodge a bullet. Literally. Feeling as though I were swimming in cement, I made a minute amount of headway, falling back in the direction I’d come, pushing off Cookie’s shoulder. But not fast enough. If the world came crashing back now, the round would enter the left side of my chest just under my collarbone. And unfortunately, I was never able to slow time for very long. It had a way of bouncing back, like a rubber band snapping into place, when I least expected it.

Just as I felt my hold slipping, as the bullet gained a precious inch too quickly for my eyes to track, as sound skipped forward like a scratched record jumping across grooves, a hand, large and masculine, wrapped around the slug and pulled it out of my path. A heat as familiar as the sun bathed me in its warmth. And another hand slid around the back of my neck as Reyes Alexander Farrow palmed the bullet and pulled me into his arms.

And what beautiful arms they were. Forearms corded with sinew and tendon. Biceps sculpted with the hills and valleys of well-defined muscle. Shoulders wide and powerful beneath a khaki T-shirt.

My gaze traveled up until I was looking into the face of an angel. Or a fallen angel. Or, well, a fallen angel’s son. Reyes’s dad just happened to be public enemy number one, the first and most beautiful angel to fall from heaven, Lucifer. And Reyes had been created in hell, literally forged in the fires of sin. Which would explain his allure.

His dark eyes glistened with humor as he asked, “This again?”

My knight in shining armor. Someday I was going to be able to save my own ass. Then I wouldn’t have to owe people. People like the son of Satan.

I fought past the primal urges that surged through my body every time Reyes was near and said as nonchalantly as I could manage, “I totally had this.”

An evil grin, probably one he’d inherited from his evil father, spread across his face, and I found myself trying not to drool for the second time that night. He glanced at the chaos surrounding us. “Yeah, I can see that. What’s she doing with her tongue?”

I tore my gaze off him and looked at Cookie. Her face was frozen in horror, her features contorted, her tongue poking out from between her teeth.

“Oh, my god. Will my camera phone work? I have got to capture this moment.” I could blackmail her for years with a shot like that.

He laughed, a deep rich sound that sent shivers racing down my spine. “I don’t think so.”

“Damn, if ever there was a Kodak moment.” I looked back at him and his ridiculously long lashes. “That bullet was traveling pretty fast,” I said. “What’s it going to do to your hand when time bounces back?”

He dropped his gaze to my mouth, let it linger there a long moment before saying, “Rip through it, most likely.”

I hadn’t expected such an honest answer.

A dimple appeared. “Don’t worry, Dutch. I’ve had worse.”

And he had. Much worse. But when would it be too much? Why should he have to endure any amount of pain for me? For a predicament I’d gotten myself into?

He raised his head. “Here it comes.”

And come it did. Time bounced back like a freight train crashing through the bar. The sound ricocheted through me. The force, like a hurricane, knocked the air from my lungs, left me gasping.

Reyes held me to him as though we were caught in the center of a tornado until we joined the same time-space continuum as the rest of the world. Then he set me at arm’s length, keeping hold of my shoulders until I gained my balance. Screams and shouts echoed through the room as people ducked and scrambled out of the way. Several patrons dived behind the bar while a couple of the off-duty cops tackled Tidwell and Cookie to the ground. Tidwell would not be a happy camper. Cookie would enjoy every moment of being groped by a hot cop. She was such a hussy.

When another cop had similar plans for me, Reyes jerked me out of the way, and in one smooth movement, he used the cop’s own momentum to slam him to the ground. He did it so fast, no one could’ve said what really happened should it come to that, and since the cop was in plainclothes, I doubted they could charge Reyes with assaulting an officer of the law. But I’d recognized this particular cop, as I did most of the cops who came into the bar. This one was a semi-friend.

I grabbed his arms and said, “Reyes, wait,” before he did any real damage. He stilled but kept Taft pinned to the ground with an arm twisted behind him and a knee on his back.