“How big an idiot are you?”

I ignored him, sitting up and looking around me with a blazing smile. “I’m not dead,” I announced.

“That depends on your definition,” he said, moving to the door. So he was going to abandon me as quickly as he’d saved me. I couldn’t complain—it was better than being smashed to bits on the terrace below.

But he wasn’t going anywhere. He simply locked the door. I was going to point out that it was already hermetically sealed, but figured he knew what he was doing. He waved his hand and the lights dimmed, and I wondered whether it was cosmic power or some kind of motion sensor. A celestial Clapper.

“What did you think you were doing?”

Well, at least he was talking to me. “I just wanted some fresh air,” I said hopefully. “Someone locked me in, and I don’t like being shut up. I’m claustrophobic.”

“No you’re not. Not anymore. You were looking for a way to get downstairs, weren’t you? So you could see what was going on.” Ah, he knew me too well. Already. “Curiosity is not a trait we value in Sheol. You’re lucky I came in time.”

“Yeah, what about that?” I said in a calm voice. “I thought you knew what I was thinking. I was sending you every distress signal I could come up with.

Why didn’t you come?”

“If I had to spend all my time in your convoluted mind, I’d immolate myself,” he said. “I’d prefer to keep away, but I was coming up here anyway and I thought I’d find out whether you were asleep or not.”

“Hardly asleep. I haven’t had dinner yet.”

It was too dark to see if he rolled his eyes, but I had the definite impression that he’d done the angelic equivalent of it. “You don’t need to eat as often here.”

“It’s not a question of need, it’s a question of want. I eat for the same reason I read. Not for nourishment, but for sensual pleasure,” I said brightly. And then regretted it. Mentioning sensual pleasure opened up a subject that was far too sensitive, as far as I was concerned. I didn’t want him wandering around inside my mind, reading my irrational and badly banked desires.

He was holding himself very still, looking at me, and there was something in the air, a tension that slid beneath my skin. I could feel my heart beating, not the terrified flutter of minutes ago as I’d faced death, but a slow, relentless thudding that seemed almost audible. Damn, I thought.

He made a gesture, and the lights in the kitchen dimmed. The room filled with shadows, making me even more nervous. “You know, a gas fireplace would be nice in here,” I said in a conversational tone, trying to lessen the tension that rippled beneath the surface. “It would make it cozy.”

I half-expected him to wave his arm and a magic fireplace to appear, and then I shook myself. He wasn’t a genie, granting my three wishes. Though I wasn’t sure exactly what he was, at least as far as I was concerned.

“Since even a match could end up destroying me, I don’t find fireplaces cozy at all. You’ll have to do without one.”

I’d forgotten. “Good point,” I said brightly, trying not to look at him. I’d always had a healthy interest in sex, in men, but more often than not I found better things to do. I had better orgasms on my own, something that would doubtless shock the slightly prudish Raziel, and I’d often found boyfriends not worth the trouble. So why did I suddenly have to become obsessed with someone?

“I’m not prudish.”

“Shit!” I shrieked as if I’d been pinched. I could feel the color flood my face. How could I have forgotten? His ability to hear my thoughts was almost the worst thing about this entire experience.

“Worse than dying?”

“Stop it!” I snapped, thoroughly flustered.

“How are your hands? Are you hurt?”

I looked down at them. My fingers were red, cramped, and I pushed off from the couch. “Fine,” I said. “I’ll just run some water over them.” I wanted to get away from his far-too-observant eyes.

“You don’t need to.”

He was standing between me and the kitchen, effectively blocking the way. “I think that’s my decision,” I said, trying to circumvent him.

He was too big to get around. Before I could guess his intention he’d taken both my hands in his, and his touch zinged through my arms like an electric shock. I jumped back, tripping over my own bare feet in my effort to get away from him.

He caught my elbow as I fell, righting me, then releasing me immediately. “You’re very clumsy, aren’t you?” he observed.

It didn’t do any good to guard my tongue—he already knew what I was thinking. “You make me nervous.”

“Why?”

“Let me count the ways,” I said. “You’re a guardian angel who tried to toss me into the flames of hell; you’re a vampire; you think I’m a pain in the butt;

and if it weren’t for you, I’d be alive and living in New York City, minding my own business.”

For a moment he said nothing. Then he spoke. “First of all, I’m not a guardian angel, not yours or anyone’s. Guardian angels don’t exist—they’re just folklore.”

“Sure they are. Like vampires.”

He ignored that. “Second, you are most definitely a pain in the butt. You’ve disrupted my life as badly as I’ve disrupted yours—”

“I doubt that,” I broke in dryly.

“Let me finish. If it were not for me, you’d be in hell right now. You were scheduled to die, and nothing can contravene that. Normally you would have simply ended up in the dark place. Most people don’t have escorts, only the ones Uriel deems necessary. I have no idea why he thought you were so important—at first glance, you seem ordinary enough.”

“Thanks so much,” I said.

“But he had something in mind. You must have offended him with your books. Uriel is easily offended.”

“I’m harmless,” I protested, fully believing it.

“I doubt that. As for my being a blood-eater, that is no concern of yours. It has nothing to do with what is between us.”

His words gave me an uncomfortable jolt. “What’s between us? There’s nothing between us.”

“Of course there is.” He moved away from me then, and I found I could breathe normally again. Or at least more normally. Apparently I’d been holding my breath, though I wasn’t quite sure why.

I could see him quite well through the thick shadows. The light from the bedroom pooled at the entrance to the main room, and I could see the glitter of his strange eyes, the expression of weariness across the elegant lines of his face. He pushed his hair away from his face, as if pushing something unacceptable away from him. And then he lifted his head to look at me.