Excerpt from "Redemption", in Zodiac: Pisces, by Sherrill Quinn

Abby started to leave, but turned back as a thought occurred to her. “You seem so familiar. Have we met?” Familiar as if her very soul recognized him. The throbbing in her pussy seemed to agree. Not, she thought with sadness, that anything would ever happen.

A full-blown smile crossed his face, turning it from interestingly craggy to heart-stoppingly beautiful. Her nipples tightened in interest and her heart beat a hard rhythm against her ribs.

“No, ma’am,” he said, and the smile still tugging at his lips caused dimples to groove his chiseled cheeks. “We’ve never met before.”

“Oh. Well, now we have.” She grimaced at how inane she sounded.

“Would you like to have a cup of coffee?” he asked. A look flitted across his face, suggesting that he instantly regretted the impetuous words.

“Oh, no, I can’t.” Her instinctive reaction was prompted by his obvious wish to retract the invitation, and she fought to maintain her composure. She wasn’t a charity case for some stranger to pity. Her body drooped, while inbred politeness prompted her to murmur, “But thank you.”

She turned and walked away from him, more aware of her scarred and crippled legs than ever before. The physical therapist kept assuring her that she would eventually walk without a limp, but she was impatient. She’d been in therapy for three and a half months already. How eventual was eventually?

She was aware of his gaze following her as she crossed the street to walk the rest of the block to her apartment. When she stepped up on the curb she couldn’t help but look over her shoulder. Disappointed to see he was gone, she heaved a sigh. “Oh, well, Abs. You aren’t his type, anyway.”

Damon frowned when he heard her muttered comment. He walked a few paces behind her in his Protector form, watching her pert fanny swing with her uneven gait. If anything, the limp made her even sexier. It made him want to strip those pants from her and slide into her sweet, wet pussy with a cock that now was rock-solid.

His frown deepened. Even in corporeal form, this had never happened on assignment. He hadn’t thought it was possible for it to happen when he was in spirit form, yet here he was with an erection throbbing along his thigh like a third leg.

He didn’t know what it was about her, but his body reacted with wild need in her presence. Maybe it was that she was exactly his type: elegant, independent and determined, with a gut-wrenching beauty that threatened to double him over with need.

Incredible that she couldn’t see how sexy she was. But he knew every man she came into contact with saw it. And he tensed with jealousy.

She was his.

He curled his fingers into his palms. What the hel... heck was he thinking? He was a specter, sent to protect this woman and thereby assure himself a place in Heaven. He had no business lusting after her. That emotion definitely wouldn’t get him past the pearly gates. “Get hold of yourself, man,” he muttered, in his distraction forgetting to mask his words.

When her head turned sharply, he realized he’d spoken aloud. She looked around, her eyes searching. After a slight hesitation, she entered the building.

Following her into her apartment, Damon watched. Stooping slowly and painfully to pick up an orange tabby that nattered around her feet, she rubbed her face into the soft fur, her eyes closed as she straightened.

He shook his head. Damned if they both didn’t have the same expression on their faces, woman and feline. Closed-eyed contentment. How long had it been since he’d felt that?

Dammit, dammit, dammit! He wasn’t supposed to feel anything. Perhaps he’d better ask for re-assignment before his emotions got him into trouble. But he didn’t think he could leave Abby to another Protector. After the first one’s abysmal failure, he didn’t trust anyone else to keep her safe.

“You know, Jericho, it’s the oddest thing, but for the last several weeks I’ve had the feeling that I’m never alone. I’ve never felt such ... peace, such a sense of security.” She rubbed her face against the cat’s head. “Between that and the dreams, I think maybe I’m finally losing it. What d’ya think?”

The cat meowed and butted his head against her chin. She laughed and placed him on the back of the sofa. “I know, you glutton. You want to be fed again. My horoscope warned me about you. ‘Today someone you love will be focused on their own needs. Don’t feel bad. They’ll come around.’”

She scratched the big tabby on his jaw, laughing again when he stretched his neck and tilted his head to give her better access. “And I do love you, fat cat. You’re my baby, aren’t you?”

Damon felt almost a sense of domesticity, watching her putter around the small apartment, talking to the cat and laughing at herself. If nothing else, her encounter with him seemed to have lightened her mood. For that he was glad. If only...

He deliberately closed his mind to further thought. He was here to do a job. He was to make sure she was protected from the man who sought to harm her, a man who had very nearly succeeded when her former Protector had been distracted.

Damon had been given very strict instructions to assure her safety; he’d sat beside her as she lay in the hospital bed, both legs in casts, face bruised and swollen. She had been stubbornly determined to get well, and he’d fallen a little bit in love with her then.

Abby had been in the wrong place at the wrong time and had unwittingly witnessed a vicious crime. Not that she was even aware of it. But the man thought she was, and sought to silence her forever. Which was where Damon came in. He was her Protector, and he’d be damned if he’d let the villain succeed.

He stilled, realizing the import of his words. The veracity they represented. Never mind that she was his hope for redemption, another successfully completed assignment. He would accept the damnation of his eternal soul if it ensured that Abigail McNeil would be safe.

She was more than just a job to him, had been from the moment he’d materialized in her hospital room and had seen her lying so still against the sheets. Now, after having protected her for these many months, he knew he would risk everything to ensure she lived.

When she went into the bathroom and readied for bed, he stayed in the living room. Hearing the water in the shower running, he clenched his fists. He closed his eyes and had no problem picturing what she looked like. Her hair, wet and sleek down her back, curled slightly at the ends just above the rounded curve of her buttocks. Long, slender legs, once strong, now weaker and scarred.

In his mind’s eye, he moved around to her front. Her breasts rode high and firm above her ribcage. Each mound was tipped with a hard, pink nipple, begging for his mouth. Her stomach was slightly rounded, womanly. Soft, light red hair covered her mons and sheltered her secrets from his gaze. He could see her soaping her hands, running them over her soft skin, between her legs...

His cock rose and he stared in disbelief. Again he had an erection. What the hel...heck was going on?

The water shut off and he snapped open his eyes. He heard the shower curtain jangle open, and imagined her stepping out of the tub and toweling off. He wished it were his hands drying her. No, not his hands. His lips, his tongue. He would trace every drop of water, licking it off her silken skin.

~ ~ ~

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Sherrill Quinn
Romance With An Edge
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