He didn’t complete me; he complemented me and that was a zillion times better.
To be ripped from that would destroy me.
I cupped his cheek. “I believe you.” Well, I believed he believed it.
Fingers crossed that would be enough.
The outfit I chose was a curve-hugging black sheath with cap sleeves and a hemline that hit just below the knee. It looked almost demure until I turned around to reveal the plunging back, the fabric draping softly at the base of my spine. I paired it with red lips and red heels.
Rohan gave me a wolfish grin when I flounced into his room. He prodded me backward until my legs hit his mattress. “Show me how it comes off.”
“None of that.” My stomach fluttered; my push against his chest was more insistent. “I want you desperate for me.”
He nipped my bottom lip, his hand sliding over the stretchy fabric to cup my ass, and pressed his erection against my belly. “Done. Take it off.”
I allowed myself one inhale of his spicy, musky cologne with the underbite of iron that was all Ro, before sidestepping him. “Good and nope.”
I picked up the bluish-gray tie, similar in color to my eyes, that he’d laid out to go with his turquoise shirt and slid it around his neck. Fussing over my man, a quiet intimacy. It was nice.
“Nava.” Rohan gasped, his skin getting a tad purple and his eyes glassy.
I fumbled at the choking knot that got tighter the more I worked at it. Damn ties. My dad always made putting these on look so easy. What the hell was the stupid trick? Over, under–no. I tried again.
Rohan pushed my hands away, extended the blade on his index finger and sliced the thing off. The tie fluttered to the ground. He frowned. “I liked that tie.”
I opened his closet and, pulling out an identical one, thrust it at him. “Please. You buy your ties in pairs.”
He strung the tie around his neck. “Good ties are hard to…” He paused, his knot half-formed. “Did you snoop through my closet?”
I patted his cheek. “Of course I did.”
He slid the tie down through the loop he’d created and pulled it tight, making the whole “over/under” thing look like anyone could learn it. Shrugging into his suit jacket, Rohan escorted me out of the room, his hand on the small of my back. “Try not to gape too much when you meet Mahmud.”
“Is he horribly disfigured?”
Rohan shot me a what-is-wrong-with-you look. “No. He’s your type.”
“I have a type?”
He laughed.
I was determined to prove him wrong, but when we entered Lotus and Mahmud stood from his table to greet us? Yeah, I checked my chin for drool.
Tall, hot bod, suit tailored like a second skin–those were basic Rasha-issue. But his dark brown skin, intense black eyes, goatee, and black hair scraped back into a messy ponytail, all coupled with these full pink lips whose evolutionary function was to be sucked on? Let’s just say that other than Malik who’d had a couple thousand years to perfect tall, dark, and sexy, Mahmud, despite only having maybe thirty years to cultivate his hotness, was the first man to make Rohan look a little plain.
“Hi. I’m Nava.” I stuck my hand out for him to shake.
His grasp was firm, warm. “Mahmud.” His husky voice curled inside me like syrup.
“Pleasure,” I squeaked out.
Rohan snorted.
To be fair, my recovery time was pretty fast. This was work after all. Plus, the boyfriend standing right there.
Rohan pulled my chair out for me, and from Mahmud’s assessing look, he got our status.
The waitress came to take our order. Slender, with dark curly hair, dressed in a crisp white shirt and black cigarette pants, her dimpled smile lit up her whole face. Given that the majority of other customers were middle-aged couples and a couple of groups of business men, serving us was hitting the jackpot. Well, serving the men.
“I’m Olivia. I’ll be your server tonight.”
“Hi, Olivia.” Rohan turned his rock fuck grin on her. Power to the chick for staying upright.
I kicked him under the table. He covered the flinch pretty well, his knee brushing against mine, remaining there, connecting us. He trapped my hand loosely against his thigh as he told her which dishes we’d decided to share.
“So, Nava, what was your first impression of the Rasha?” Mahmud said.
I sipped my green tea. “You want the honest answer or the polite answer?”
His eyes twinkled as he leaned in. “Oh, now I definitely need the honest answer.”
I entertained Mahmud with my initial meetings of Baruch, Kane, and Drio, while Olivia brought out sumptuous sushi rolls plated on daikon and fat pieces of melt-in-your-mouth sashimi.
Mahmud’s single failing was that he was hopeless with chopsticks. Sushi wreckage was strewn across his plate. He licked off a couple of grains of rice that were stuck to his finger. “I’m a disaster. Apologies.”
“You’re fine. But you might want to hold the chopsticks down farther.” I held mine up to demonstrate.
He adjusted his grip and tried again with slightly better results. “Not that I’m not always delighted to see your hairy ass, Mitra, but I get the sense you invited me for more than my good looks.”
“Oh, he invited you for that too,” I quipped.
Mahmud laughed and Rohan kicked me under the table.
“Askuchar,” Rohan said. With that one word, all levity at our table fled. He topped up all our sake, serving himself last.
“What about it?” Mahmud’s expression was bland.
I gripped my chopsticks, my eyes darting to Rohan’s.
A flash of impatience darkened his face. “Don’t play politics. This is you and me and no bullshit. There was no logical reason for those yaksas to have trekked from Nepal through India and into Pakistan. Why Askuchar? Conveniently isolated for burying evidence? That mission was all kinds of wrong, man, and you know it.”
“Yeah.” Mahmud scrubbed a hand over his face. “I keep seeing those villagers ravaged. Yaksas are bloodthirsty, but that? It was like they’d gone berserk.”
Or they’d been forced to attack. I shook my head at Rohan, willing him not to voice our suspicions.
“How did you hear about the four Rasha that had originally been killed looking for the demons?” Ro asked.
“Got a call asking me to track. They were missing, not yet confirmed dead at that point.” Mahmud held out his sake cup for Rohan to refill.
“Who called?” I expected him to say Rabbi Mandelbaum.
“Ferdinand Alves.”
Rohan jerked the sake back so sharply that alcohol sloshed onto the white linen tablecloth. I blotted it up, grateful for something that would keep my head down and not reveal how all the color had drained from my face.
“You know him?” Mahmud asked.
“Not personally,” Rohan said. “Heard he died.”
“Yeah. While we were still in Pakistan. Car crash outside L.A.”
“Demons?” I asked.
“Don’t think so.”
Rohan was staring at his plate, his tuna sashimi untouched, his brow furrowed.
“Do you know if he was in Prague in early April?” I said.
“No idea.” Mahmud’s gaze flickered between us. “You want to tell me what’s really going on?”
“Just trying to understand how it all went balls up,” Ro said.
“Okay.” Mahmud warred with a piece of ebi sushi, sighing as it fell apart on his plate.
“Nava?” Rohan’s voice was pitched low for only me to hear.
The more people in the Brotherhood that found out, the more likelihood there was of the wrong people finding out. Except our team was stymied. Kane had done all he can, my brother wasn’t plugged in enough, and Rohan casually asking guys he trusted about Ferdinand was pointless. He’d restrained himself out of concern for me, because when shit hit the wall–and it was when not if–I’d be the first one the Brotherhood came after.
Rohan’s hand tightened on mine under the table.
I didn’t take my eyes off Mahmud’s face as Rohan filled him in, searching for a single clue as to his feelings, but he gave away nothing, listening to the tale without interjection. I clenched the linen napkin, my heart stuttering to a stop when, at the end of Ro’s tale, Mahmud trained a dangerous, glittering smile on me.
Was he going to blame me? I let my magic reach my eyes, knowing he’d see the lightning dancing there. “Yes?”
“We’re going to bring these fuckers down. Whatever you need. However I can help. I’m yours.”
“Phrasing,” Rohan said, breaking the tension. “Jeez, Mahmud, don’t steal all the beautiful women in the restaurant. This one’s mine.”
Mahmud winked at me. “I’m all yours,” he said. He picked up some sashimi without having to stab it onto his chopstick, then blinked at it, surprised. “All right then.”
Mahmud didn’t have much other information to give us. He hadn’t known Ferdinand, but he had known a couple of the dead Rasha and swore there was nothing suspicious about them. He promised to follow up with their families in case there was anything to learn there.
Rohan insisted on paying for the meal. We walked Mahmud outside and he signaled for a taxi.
As the cab pulled up to the curb, Mahmud turned to Rohan. “There’s one person who might be able to tell you about Ferdinand. Same peer group and shit. Zahir.”
Rohan gave him a searching look. “You sure?”
Mahmud shrugged. “I wouldn’t name drop me, but yeah. Try him. Last I heard he was based in Paris.” Mahmud opened the back door to the cab, then kissed my hand. “Delightful Nava, I look forward to our next meeting.”
“You charmer.” I grinned at him. “Thanks, Mahmud. Really.”
He rolled his shoulders like it was nothing. “I always believed that being Rasha meant having each other’s backs.” Something flickered over his face and he raised his troubled eyes to Rohan’s. “I just didn’t expect the enemy to be so close to home.”
Rohan couldn’t stop stealing touches all the way home.
At a stoplight, he’d sneak his hand from the clutch to just barely on my knee. At a crosswalk, he’d ghost it up. And up, and up. As the sun set and turned the glass condo towers gold, his nimble fingers edged around the line of my underwear. When we only barely missed a very angry old lady crossing a residential street, I decided that vehicular manslaughter via horny boyfriend was not, in fact, something I needed to experience.
“Who’s Zahir?” I said, smoothing my dress back to a pristine sleekness.
“Mahmud’s dad. They haven’t spoken in about five or six years, but he’s Rasha too. In his fifties and still kicking around.” Fifties was old age in our line of work. It was too depressing to contemplate.
Ro glided his hand along the base of my bare spine.
I twisted away from his touch, but the persistent boy failed to take the hint and leaned into me while still driving, so I scooted closer to him, prioritizing our collective safety. Also, I was weak and wanted those fizzy shivers as he stroked my skin. “You think he’ll have any insights into Ferdinand’s death?”
Rohan stopped the car at Demon Club’s front iron gate, set into a stone fence, to be scanned. He leaned across the gearshift and, cradling my head between his hands, took my mouth with the force of tossing gas on a fire. I grabbed his shirt and pulled him to me, feverishly kissing him. Ro bit my bottom lip and I moaned. He grinned against my mouth. “I like how we fit together.”
Dizzy, I clutched at him but only got empty air as he gunned the car up the drive.
“You were saying?” he said with a smug grin.
I was? His smugness amplified. I couldn’t let that stand so I racked my brain and eventually found where I’d left off. “If Ferdinand had been killed on a mission, I wouldn’t have thought twice about it. But a car crash? I don’t like the timing or coincidence of it.” I had personal experience with the Brotherhood masking suspicious deaths with car crashes à la Samson King in Prague.
Rohan parked, cut the engine, and turned to me, his eyes hot. “Know what else I don’t like?”
I licked my lips, remembered that wasn’t an answer and shook my head.
“Making me sit through dinner, watching you in that dress. Cruel.”
“You’ve been copping feels all the way home.”
“It’s not enough.”
I snickered, but when he slammed his precious car’s door in his haste to get me inside, I may have set a new record for speed-walking in heels.
We barely made it into his bedroom before, mouth on mine, he pressed me back against the wall. His teeth dragged over my lower lip before his tongue slipped inside. He trailed his finger blades over my shoulder and bare back, just enough to leave faint marks that I’d shiver staring at in the bathroom mirror later.
Sliding my hand under his shirt, I skimmed my fingers along the ridges of his sculpted abs. He retracted his blades and I broke the kiss to draw his fingers into my mouth, my tongue swirling around each one in turn. Pinching his nipples with my other hand, I rubbed my bare thigh up his leg. His sigh rumbled over me.
A furious ache built to a throbbing pulse inside me.
Rohan sucked on my neck and I tilted my head to give him better access to the sensitive skin. He caressed my cheek with the back of his hand, pinning me with this filthy eye-fuck that made my stomach flutter. “Wrap your legs around me.”
The position left Cuntessa flush against his hard cock, my dress hiked up around my waist. I thrust against him with a blissful moan, pushed my fingers into his hair, raking back his dark wavy locks, and slanted my mouth over his. His answering kiss was hot, hungry, and knifed straight into my soul.
I rocked my hips, my head thrown back against the wall.
“Slow down, sweetheart.” Rohan ran his fingers idly along my spine, his touch sizzling against my bare skin. “On your knees.” His voice was low and dirty.
I played with the soft dusting of hair on his chest. “You want something?”
“Yes,” he growled. “You. On your knees.”
“Whatever would I do there?”
Rohan’s eyes were a gold haze, his “please” strained.
I ran my hand over him, feeling his cock jump. “If we ever break up, you’re going to have a bitch of a time explaining to your new girlfriend that you have to come see me for blowjobs.”
“Only you,” he murmured.
My cold, dead heart grew two sizes larger. “You sure you deserve it?”
He gripped me by my waist. “I’m desperate for you.”
This gorgeous, wonderful man, with his pants half off his hips and a piratical smile playing on his lips, was hard and wrecked. For me.
I slid off him, dropping to the ground and taking his trousers and boxers along for the ride. The planks were cool under my knees and Rohan was hot silk in my mouth. My lips buzzed with magic. I ran my tongue down his shaft, sucking his balls into my mouth, inhaling the sharp smell of his arousal.
He gave a content hum, but he didn’t stop touching me: fondling my breasts, curling my locks around his fingers, running his hands over my shoulders with soft exhales and low groans.
I teased his dick between my lips, slowly taking him in, curling my tongue around the head. Grabbing him by his ass, I pulled him close, taking his cock deeper.
His hips started rocking, his fingers biting into my shoulders. His back arched off the wall. Salty pre-cum hit my tongue.
My nipples puckered and grew achingly hard. Cuntessa was dripping wet and demanding attention. I moaned and Rohan pulled free with a soft pop. “What?” I said. “I was de
ep-throating like a champ.”
There was enough moonlight to make out the amusement in his eyes, even through his fringe of thick dark lashes. “Not complaining, Sparky, but this party was about to be over before it started.”
“Allow me to help you put on the brakes.” I stood up, grasping the hem of my dress to pull it off but he stopped me, brushing my hands away.
Rohan inched the dress up me, feasting on every newly exposed inch, his gaze almost reverential. “Sometimes I can’t believe we’re finally here.”
“Me too.” It seemed too good to last, my dress bunched in Rohan’s hands as he clutched my hips, my curls brushing his chest, and my head bowed close enough to his heart to hear its staccato rhythm. It was fragile and intense and perfect.
And for the moment, it was mine.
He kissed the pulse fluttering under my jaw, still working the dress off in the world’s slowest striptease, until he had to release me to pull the fabric over my head. He dipped his head, assessing me through heavily fringed lashes. “On the bed.”
I scrambled to do as I was told, on my back, leaning against my elbows, my legs falling open.
He stood over me, still erect. I felt the weight of his hooded gaze like it was the rough glide of his tongue along my curves. He sucked on his lush lower lip.
My heart was in my throat waiting for him to touch me.
He ran a hand up my thigh, tracing the path with his lips. Ro hadn’t shaved in a few days, and his stubble chafed the tender skin on my inner thighs. He ran his tongue under my bikini underwear. So near and yet so far. I wriggled out of them, pitching them across the room into the shadows.
He flicked his tongue to my clit.
My breath caught. I curled my fingers into his locks. “More.”
He did it again, a million tiny licks that set me aflame but did nothing to quench the clenching grip of desire. I canted my hips.
Pinning my knees in place, Rohan set his head between my legs.
I teased my nipples, increasing the pressure of my pinches.
“Fuck.” Rohan groaned, his mouth wet and glistening. He covered my hand with his, making me knead my own sensitive flesh. I writhed on the sheets and begged for more in an unintelligible jumble of sounds. “Like that, do you?”
The Unlikeable Demon Hunter Collection: Books 1-6: A Complete Paranormal Romantic Comedy Series Page 92
