Las Vegas…it's the town that lives up to the promise of its nickname, Sin City. A gambler's paradise for innocent tourists, it conceals a darker, sexual world where the ethereal and wraithlike meet to play a different game…

Hot For Revenge: If there's one thing succubus Deitre understands it's revenge. That, and enticing men into arousing, exciting and, okay, perilous sex (for him). Beautiful on the outside, demon on the inside, she's going to get back at the naughty firefighter in Darkness…unless he plays his cards right…

Silky, red locks slipped over the edge of the couch to stroke against the side of my arm. I jumped with the contact, still too keyed up despite another of those almost spiritual orgasms. I was dragging butt again, too. Not nearly so bad as I had last week, not getting that pukey sensation, but my breathing was coming out as wheezes and I felt like I could stand a twelve-hour siesta.

Deitre popped her head over the side of the couch. I expected her to be smiling. All right, I feared that she would be smiling. That sexy-as-sin siren’s smile that would no doubt have my shaft swelling right back to hardness.

She wasn’t smiling. She wore a look so serious I pushed to a sitting position despite my body’s aching plea to remain on the floor. “What’s the matter?”

She swiveled around, until she was sitting on the couch with her mega-spiked heels digging into the carpet. “What you said before, about your life changing so much a year ago, I can’t forget that.”

Hell, she sounded sad. And like a total asshole, I was starring at her nipples peeking out from the holes in the low-cut top of her skimpy red dress.

Cursing the single-mindedness I struggled to shake around her, I met her eyes and focused on her words. My gut clenched as they settled. She wanted to know more about what happened the night of the apartment fire. Part of me still wanted to share the information with her. Another part was scared shitless she would agree, that while I had done my job by the book that night, I’d still fucked up in the long run.

All of me feared that the admission would be enough to make her walk away.

It wasn’t just the fear of losing her as a lover, either. Somehow, in less than two weeks, she’d worked her way into my mind as much as my heart. I didn’t get that somehow. And I didn’t want her in my heart. At least, I shouldn’t. Not when I wanted kids and she couldn’t get pregnant.

Of course, we could always adopt. And I was putting the cart way in the hell out in front of the horse . . .

Tucking both cart and horse into the back of my mind, I affected a calm tone. “Why can’t you forget it?”

Sorrow entered her eyes. “Because mine changed a year ago, too.” She looked down at her lap where she worked her joined fingers anxiously. “My best friend was killed.”

I went the asshole route again by breathing a sigh of relief to know that she wasn’t talking about my past, but her own.

Regaining a bit of nice-guy ground, I took one of her hands into mine and gave it a supportive squeeze. At least, I’d planned to gain some nice-guy ground with the move. Even that subtle touch had sensual heat arcing in the air between us and the fiery halo of light expanding until the living room was as bright as if the shades were drawn and sunlight flooded the house.

I wanted to question where she’d found whatever was giving off the light—it could make for an invaluable tool while searching smoky and night-blackened fire scenes. But, right now, all that mattered was soothing her grief. “I’m sorry to hear that, Deitre. We have to face loss as a part of our job, but it never gets any easier.”

She looked up and pinned me with an impassioned glare. “She was killed because of our job.”

My want to comfort her combusted as an eerie sense of foreboding started a vicious roiling in my gut.

Our pasts couldn’t be intertwined. Not the way my suddenly spinning mind was considering. “What happened?” I asked unable to keep a tremor from my voice.

“Jada was trapped on the top floor of a burning apartment building.” Deitre’s voice shook twice as badly as mine had, and tears glittered in her eyes. “Supposedly, the fire crew on sight did everything they could to get her out—I mean, I know they did—but I still can’t help but feel like they should have done something more. She was such a good person.” Sniffing, she sent me a wobbly smile. “Actually, I could see the two of you getting along well.”

Ironically, so could I. Because Jada and I had gotten along well, right up until the day I decided she was getting too clingy and I ended our relationship.

That was about two months before Ladder 19 was called out to her fire-ravaged apartment building and I was left with the choice of saving her, or a stranger down the hall before the roof collapsed. I had no idea if Jada was even still alive. The stranger I was guaranteed was alive because I could hear him screaming for help. The stranger lived. Jada hadn’t.