My Immortal by Erin McCarthy Page A

didn’t seem funny that she was still single. “I think he forgot to ask for directions, just like a man.”
    The curtain on the top of the bed looked soft and shiny. Marley stared at it hard. “My mom, she’s bipolar, you know. Between taking care of her, cooking and cleaning for my dad, working with my students, helping Lizzie with Sebastian…well, I haven’t had a lot of time to go looking for him either. And he just hasn’t rung my doorbell. Nobody rings the doorbell but the UPS man and the guys who try to sell me doorknocker polish and magazines.”
    “Doorknocker polish?” Damien frowned.
    Marley undid the tie at the back of her neck. The strain of holding her breasts up had the nylon strings digging deep into her flesh. It hurt, was giving her a headache. “I think Lizzie is bipolar too. But my mom, she’s always on the down side. She gets depressed to the point where she doesn’t bathe, won’t dress herself. Lizzie’s the opposite. She’s high, all this nervous energy, crazy optimism…she wrote that she was in love with you, but you don’t even remember her.”
    “It’s wonderful, Marley, how you take care of everyone. But you need to make sure you take care of yourself too.”
    “That’s what a vibrator is for—taking care of myself.” Marley laughed again, pulling the bikini top off altogether. It was irritatingly tight, itchy and distracting.
    Damien sat up and started unbuttoning his shirt.
    Now this had possibilities. Marley licked her lips, getting the last bits of cinnamon sugar from the corner.
    But when Damien stripped his shirt off, revealing a very impressive, muscular chest, he took the shirt and laid it across her own bare chest, his eyes averted.
    “I thought men liked big breasts,” she said, offended, even as she snuggled into the well-worn, soft, warm fabric of his shirt. It smelled like him, rich and strong.
    Damien smiled, that charming, smooth smile she’d first noticed on him. “You have beautiful breasts, Marley. So beautiful that if I look, I’ll want to touch.”
    “So touch.” What was so hard about that for him to figure out?
    But he made a sound of frustration. “It’s not that simple. Nothing is what you think it is, and to touch you, make love to you like I want to…it would be wrong. It would be a sin.”
    “A sin?” Marley frowned. Damn it. This wasn’t supposed to happen. She was here, half naked, at a sex party, and this was a golden opportunity to throw over all her responsibilities, all her frustrations, all her reservations, and indulge in a night of pure sexual hedonism.
    But the man she wanted to guide her through the freedom of debauchery was telling her that it would be a sin.
    She sighed. This was very disappointing. “That’s the most depressing thing I’ve ever heard.”
    Marley bunched up Damien’s shirt and tucked it under her head like a pillow. She rolled up on her side, pressed the palm of her hand on his chest. His flesh was hard and warm, his heart pounding beneath her touch.
    “Are you going back down to the party?”
    “No. I’m going to stay here with you.”
    Marley smiled, head spinning again. Sleep was starting to sound very appealing. “Thank you. It’s so nice to have help for a change.” His face went out of focus, so she closed her eyes.
    “You’re welcome,” he said.
    And Marley spiraled off into the darkness of her dreams.

Chapter Seven
     
    Damien watched Marley sleeping, her lips parted, chest rising and falling laboriously. Help her? That was ironic. He couldn’t even help himself. He definitely couldn’t help someone else, especially not someone as completely tempting as Marley.
    When she had removed her top, it had taken every ounce of his willpower to prevent him from reaching over and cupping her warm, lush body.
    It was his job to promote sin, to encourage lust, obsessive and selfish sexual desire. For that, he was given eternal life, and there was no way out of the bargain he had stupidly struck.