“There’s no one on this forsaken road for miles, in case you haven’t noticed. I know I can see farther than you but you can at least see that much.”
“Don’t raise your voice to me.”
“I’m not raising my voice,” he nearly shouted, slamming a fist on the dash for emphasis.
“There will be more traffic on this road come morning.”
“I can’t be out here come morning,” he gritted out.
“Scheiße. Sorry. I’m flustered, I forgot. Well.” She took a deep breath and tried to think. “It’s early yet, barely eight o’clock. We’ll give it a couple of hours and if no one has driven by we’ll walk to the nearest house. There are farms dotted all around this area. There’s bound to be a home somewhere near enough for us to reach it easily enough on foot.”
“You foolish woman. I told you this trip was folly.”
“I’m sorry, okay? There’s no reason to get uptight about it. We’ll cope.”
She shivered despite the rising heat that baked off of Cinder’s body. For all the harshness of Cinder’s admonitions they didn’t compare to the harshness of her own. How could she have been so foolish? She’d placed Cinder’s life in danger by coming out here. What if they couldn’t find shelter before morning?
They would, she vowed. They had to. Cinder meant too much to her for her to let such a horrible thing happen without putting up a hell of a fight.
She opened her door and exited the vehicle. In a vain effort to capture a signal she walked several yards ahead of the car, raising her cell phone high in the air. When she had no luck there, she retraced her steps, then walked several more yards in the opposite direction.
There was still no signal.
“Scheiße! Damn it. Scheiße.” She stomped her foot and winced. Her toes had long since gone numb and needle-sharp pain was her only reward for the childish gesture. “Fuck,” she growled.
She walked gingerly back to the vehicle and collapsed inside, shivering from the cold. “I can’t get a signal out here,” she griped.
Reaching over his lap and into her glove box she retrieved an old forgotten package of black clove cigarettes and placed one between her lips. Her cold fingers almost dropped the lighter she fished out of her purse, and after several fruitless attempts to light her clove she growled in frustration.
“I can’t get my fingers to work,” she complained to Cinder, who was watching the whole process with a small smile. “The stupid thing won’t light,” she mumbled, causing the cigarette—still perched between her lips—to bounce precariously.
Cinder reached out and placed the tip of his index finger to the end of her clove. A tiny spark appeared and a thin stream of smoke began to drift upwards. She drew deeply upon it, not a little unnerved by the display, and he removed his finger.
“Thanks,” she said hoarsely.
“Anytime,” was his suave response.
The clove served to warm her a little, as she’d hoped it would. The gentle perfume of the herb filled the automobile with a welcoming sweetness. They settled back to wait, their eyes watching the road intently before them in search of approaching headlights.
Chapter Nine
“You’re cold. Come here and I’ll warm you.” His voice was pure, wicked seduction.
“How can you think about sex at a time like this?” She laughed, heart already racing with anticipation.
“What better time to think of so pleasurable a thing as now when we find ourselves in this uncomfortable situation?”
Steffy snorted but it was a feeble effort. Her nose was too cold for it.
“Think of it as a practical survival endeavor. If I give off too much more heat I’ll scorch your seat and it still won’t sufficiently warm this car. It’s not airtight. There are too many drafts.” He reached out and touched his burning finger to her cheek, stroking her softly. Shamelessly tantalizing her with the lure of his warmth.
“There’s no room for it. The backseat and boot are full of my equipment.”
“There’s room enough.” He pushed his seat back as far as it would go and patted his lap. “Climb on. I’ll help you.”
Steffy giggled—actually giggled—and wondered if perhaps she was losing her mind. “You’ll help me?”
“Come on. It’ll be fun. And it will relax us both so that we can think of a good plan.”
“You are so cute when you’re horny.” She laughed and began to disrobe, then thought better of it. “I’ll get too cold.”
“No you won’t. Take them off, I’ll keep you warm.”
“Promise?” she teased, already removing her garments.
“I promise.” His teeth were a white blaze in the darkness as he leered at her devilishly.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she muttered as she peeled away her red stockings and black silk panties. Her skirt—a red and black plaid mini with silver loops adorning it—she left on.
“Oh, I like that,” he breathed appreciatively, rubbing her bared thighs as she awkwardly crawled over him.
“I thought you might,” she said impishly.
Cinder’s hands went to the fastening of his pants, and it was short work before his erection sprang free and strong away from its confines. He produced a condom from the confines of one pocket—Steffy was amazed that he never seemed to be without protection—and rolled it over his straining thickness. He helped to guide her legs to either side of him, and held the base of his cock steady as she wriggled down onto him.
The sleek wet softness of her body eased his way despite the tight fit and they sighed with the pleasure of it.
“Warm me, Cinder.” She breathed her siren’s call into his mouth.
His arms came around her, moving beneath her blouse, surrounding her with heat. He wore short sleeves—he always did, because he had no real need of heavier clothing. His golden muscles bulged as he pulled her closer to him, stroking from her back to her thighs in long, sweeping motions.
“You have the longest, sexiest legs I’ve ever seen. Have I told you that?”
“Only about a hundred times,” she laughed, “but still not nearly often enough.”
“I just want to wrap them around my neck and drown in you,” he said thickly.
Her nipples peaked at his words. “I love it when you say such things,” she gasped, fitting herself more fully onto his marble-hard cock.
“I have to see your breasts,” he muttered darkly, gaze boring into her chest as if he could burn away the covering.
Steffy realized that he very probably could.
Her fingers moved swiftly to unbutton her chaste cotton shirt and Cinder’s hands pulled down the lace of her bra to bare her to his gaze. He sighed and palmed her.
“They’re like hard apples in my hand,” he growled and pressed a hot kiss to her arching neck as she leaned into his touch.
“They’re too small,” she moaned. His hands dwarfed her.
“Perfect.” His fingers tugged on her stabbing nipples.
The smooth, sleek feel of the condom he wore slipped deeper inside of her. Steffy would have sworn that he reached as far as the back of her throat, so deeply did he penetrate her body. She felt spitted, impaled. It was a delicious feeling and one she’d grown hopelessly addicted to over the course of the past two weeks.
His hands moved beneath her breasts to her ribs where he gripped her, lifted and lowered her, helping her to begin the hard, bouncing ride he knew would drive her wild. Her breasts bobbed before him until he gave in to the temptation to draw one into his mouth. Strong, white teeth rolled her nipple. The burn of his tongue rasped her, the moist caress of his breath played over her skin until it trembled.
With shaking, desperate hands, Steffy clenched his head ever more tightly against her. His hair was like silk in her fingers, a spill of platinum fire that glinted in the darkness. The gold-dusted tips of his lashes brushed her skin as he buried his face into the swell of her breast, tickling her, caressing her with his every movement. Steffy du
g her pelvis into him on a down stroke, burying him deeper inside of her. They both gasped their response, shuddering in unison.
The dripping wet heat of her pussy gripped him, pulsed and squeezed around him like a tight fist. The crown of his cock swelled and filled her so tightly that their bodies made wet, slurping sounds as they thrust back and forth. The blood that engorged him was so hot as to nearly scald her insides, scraping against her G-spot with that heat until she was mewling her ecstasy aloud in response to every deep stroke he made within her.
Cinder bucked up into her even as he moved her upon him until the car shuddered and rocked with the force of their movements. Ever the lover of rough play, he pounded into her with the force of a battering ram. Steffy groaned and held on for dear life. He was like a storm upon her, wild and untamed and fierce. Steffy moaned, cried, and whimpered…but she didn’t scream.
“Scream for me,” he demanded, moving his mouth to hers, parting her lips as if he could draw the surrender from her.
“No.” She trembled. She burned. But she wouldn’t scream for him.
“You will scream for me.”
Steffy gritted her teeth against the primitive, womanly urge to obey her man.
His tongue licked her lips, a brush of fire. She moaned. The fire flowed into her mouth, licking her teeth and tongue with long, demanding strokes. His lips slanted over hers. His hips pounded ever more fiercely into her, his hands pulled her down onto him with bruising force. The burn of his fingers scorched a path down to her hips, beneath her skirt, and dug into the soft handle of her buttocks.
He spread her wide, rubbed his finger over the pucker of her anus, and she jerked against him. The hot, wet pulse of her release took her in a rush until she was mindless in the path of that all-consuming pleasure.
But she didn’t scream.
She swallowed the urge, tamped it down before it could escape and give him the satisfaction his ego demanded so mercilessly. A groan bubbled up from the depths of her body, the sound one of deepest satisfaction. And triumph. Triumph that she’d still—after all this time, after all this battling—succeeded in keeping some small piece of herself from him.
Cinder growled and bit her lip in punishment. The love bite only added to her pleasure; she shook with the force of her orgasm. Long moments passed. She collapsed in a boneless heap against his broad chest.
Cinder moved her gently back until she reclined on the dashboard behind her. His hands moved down to her pussy. His fingers sank into the river of moisture that flowed from her, surrounding him, dripping onto the softly curling hairs of his pelvis. He parted her folds, spreading her so wide that the cool air caressed all of her tender secret flesh. His gaze bored into her there and he trembled against her.
The motions of his body had gentled so that now he only rocked into her as she reclined. Cinder leaned forward and let a glistening stream of saliva fall down onto their enjoined flesh. It sizzled as it splashed against them, so hot that it actually cooled in the pool of fiery wetness that swam there. Steffy cried out as it burned her, the sensation one of both pain and exquisite pleasure. His eyes met hers in smug challenge.
“I didn’t scream,” she said hoarsely, defensively.
“Not too far from it though, are you, love?” He smiled dangerously.
He flexed his cock deep within her and she came once more. He chuckled against her lips as she gasped and moaned. The heat of his hands stroked her from neck to knee, petting her over and over again, rewarding her for the endless intensity of her response to him.
When Steffy came down from her peak his fingers roughly tugged and rolled her nipples, effectively pushing her back up. Cinder undulated his hips against her, twisting his deeply buried cock. Disbelieving, she choked on a scream as she came again.
Her body felt like a swollen, aching puddle after her release subsided once again. Her senses were so heightened that just the moistness of Cinder’s breath on her lips was a sexual torture. Shaking and weak she could only lay there as he once more renewed his assault upon her body. He knew her every erogenous zone, her every secret desire and used them as velvet edged weapons against her.
So much pleasure. Her teeth ached from it.
The tip of one of his fingers pressed into her clit, a lick of heat surged from him into her and she sobbed, coming again. But she would not scream. Cinder swore in defeat and slammed his lips and body against her. He thrust jarringly into her, bringing her, making her crazed with ecstasy and lust.
Liquid fire was the essence of his release as it flew from him into the condom. Steffy felt it burn against her as if there were no barriers between them. Her nails dug into his biceps, leaving bloody half-moons on his smooth, taut skin. Her head fell limply back as he gathered her closer against him once again.
“Fucking you is like reliving every wet dream I’ve ever had, all at once,” he murmured against her throat.
“And riding you is like riding fire.” She tried and failed to keep from bursting into laughter over her words. It was true, though, she had to admit it.
“You didn’t scream.” He sounded hurt and her gaze darted to his face. She saw nothing in his face to give away such pain, but wondered at what she’d heard there—for one small moment—in his voice.
Did he, maybe, love her a little?
She dare not ask herself yet if she loved him.
“Why do you want me to so badly?”
He didn’t answer immediately, merely lifted her body off of him, pushed her back, and pulled his soiled condom off the still impressive length of his cock. The windows were so misted over that they couldn’t see beyond them. He rolled his down and threw the condom out into the night. The chill of the air snuck in and danced on the sweat that moistened her body, cooling her considerably before Cinder rolled the window back up and blocked it away.
“I’d like to know that I can inspire such abandon from you. You’re so self-contained, even when you’re in the midst of your release.” He seemed to consider his words carefully before continuing. “If you screamed I would know without a doubt that I have done my part in pleasuring you fully, so that all of your barriers were stripped away.”
Steffy frowned. If she did that she would have no defenses against him. He would have mastered her then. How could she surrender so much when she never had before?
“I’m just not a screamer,” she said with feigned lightness.
His eyes blazed into hers. “Every woman is a screamer with the right man.”
She snorted. “What a sexist thing to say. Not all women scream.”
“You will. You will scream for me one day.”
Steffy said nothing. She crawled unsteadily back to her seat. At least she was no longer cold. The heat of the car had risen so that it resembled a greenhouse. It was difficult, but she managed to get her stockings and shoes back on in the confines of her seat.
With a startled shriek, Steffy jumped as there came a firm tapping at her window.
Chapter Ten
“So the Daemons have somehow mastered Traveling?” Cady exclaimed.
“I fear so. Zim and his team saw the group they fought tonight appear as if from nowhere. They’re not so good as one of our Traveler Caste, but they are very dangerous with this new power at their disposal.”
“I don’t believe it. How can it be possible?” Obsidian was incredulous.
“The Daemons have many similarities to us. It was probably only a matter of time before they developed Caste traits,” Tryton said wearily.
Obsidian, Cady, Edge and The Traveler sat in Tryton’s personal apartments. Zim’s unexpected news had brought them all together there for an emergency meeting to discuss their next step in controlling the Daemon threat.
“Why are they similar to us, Tryton?”
The blond-haired Elder started, clearly not expecting such a question. He darted a glance in The Traveler’s direction and Cady wondered at the many secrets that no doubt passed between them.
“They just ar
e, I suppose.”
“Uh-uh, no way. I saw that look in your eyes. You know something and you’re not telling.” She pushed mercilessly. “Spill it.”
Tryton sighed. “What I choose to share with you should be enough to satisfy. You don’t need to know more than that, trust me.”
“You know something about the Daemons that you’re not telling us?” Obsidian asked with no small amount of shock. Cady thought it no doubt stemmed from the assumption that his leader had kept no secrets from him over the years. He was, after all, Tryton’s most trusted warrior.
“I keep my own counsel when I wish. But I keep no secrets to myself that could serve to harm you,” Tryton said firmly.
Tensions were high and rising by the second. Cady expertly steered them back away from the dangerous subject, feeling guilty that she’d been the cause for it in the first place. She knew she asked too many questions. But she was still human in the way she thought things through…she didn’t always accept things blindly as the Shikars seemed wont to do. “So if these Daemons can Travel, what does that mean for us?”
“It means more danger for our warriors in the Territories.” Tryton seemed as eager as she to let the talk of secrets fall silent once more. But Cady was no fool. She knew that a reckoning would come and soon. She only hoped that feelings weren’t hurt when the time came for revelations.
“Only in the Territories? What about here? Can the Daemons come here?” Cady asked, thinking immediately of the safety of her infant son, Armand.
“No. We have strong wards here to protect us from such a threat. Ancient spells that will hold against any invasion. But the surface of this world is not so well guarded. And the dimensions that our Travelers frequent are at risk as well. Though the Daemons seem content enough to ravage the Earth and not those other ethereal plains.”
“We are already spread thin in the Territories. We’ve lost several warriors over the past months and only a few days ago we lost an entire team in battle. What can we do to adequately meet and neutralize this new threat?” Obsidian sighed heavily.
Wanton Fire Page 10
