The Darkest Seduction lotu-10

by Gena Showalter

  “You are, and I love it. Anyway, something’s going on with my demon, that’s all. I swear to you, I haven’t been with the goddess and I won’t be. Ever.”

  “She’s a goddess?”

  “Who holds no appeal for me.”

  He could be lying. He could be telling the truth. Actually, he was telling the truth, she decided in an instant, not needing Wrath’s help. Paris wasn’t the type to lie. Consequences weren’t something he feared.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Her shoulders sagged with defeat. “I shouldn’t have come back.”

  “Doesn’t matter? Are you giving up on me? On us?” He gripped her forearms and shook her. “I know we said we’d part when you could leave the realm, but I want to revisit that decision. It’s no longer an option for me. And I know you’re going to have a difficult time believing this, but no matter how my body reacts to others, no matter what my demon wants, you are it for me. Do you understand?” Another shake, harder than before.

  “Uh, Paris,” Strider called. “Who you talking to, buddy?”

  He twisted, and she peeked around him. The warriors had stopped fighting each other, and everyone but the scarred one and the blonde goddess were eyeing Paris as if he’d just flipped his ever-loving lid.

  “They can’t see me,” she said.

  He was saved from having to reply to her or his friends when the door in the center of the hall swung open and the dark-haired William stepped into the hall. He was pale, clearly shaken to his soul and bathed in blood.

  She gasped. “What happened to him?”

  William clapped to gain everyone’s attention. “All right, listen up. I’ve got good news and bad news. Because I’m such a positive person, we’ll start with the good. Ashlyn survived the birthing, and so did her personal horde.”

  The hallway echoed with breathy sighs of relief…none louder than Maddox’s own.

  “So what’s the bad?” someone demanded.

  After a dramatic pause, the warrior said, “I’m out of conditioner. I need someone to flash out of here and get me some. Hint, I’m looking at you, Lucien. And, yeah, you’re welcome for my amazing contrib to your happy family. Little terrors clawed me up but good.”

  “William!” someone else snapped. “Stay on track, and keep the unnecessary details to a minimum. We’re dying here.”

  “That’s gratitude for you. So anyway, come on, come in, and meet your nephew and niece, Murder and Mayhem. Or, if you want to call them by their nicknames, and I’m sure you will the moment they get their mitts on you, Pistol and Shank.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  AS HAPPY AS PARIS WAS with the births, as much as he wanted to meet the babies, he had to take care of his woman first. He tossed Sienna over his shoulder with the finesse of a bulldozer, shouted, “No one enter my bedroom, no matter what you hear,” and stalked to the room he’d used before, passing through the hall of statues. Each of his friends cast him weird looks before he rounded the corner. Mainly because they were all laid out flat and hadn’t recovered from Maddox kicking and shoving them out of his way, so they were dazed, but also because they assumed Paris had just spent a good five minutes talking to himself.

  I want her still, Sex said with no small measure of surprise.

  Don’t worry. We’ll get her.

  Sienna had been stunned silent and remained still at first, but with his every step she worked herself into more of a lather. Soon she was slapping at his back, jerking at his hair and attempting to knee him in the face and balls. Up the stairs he went, down another hall, barely able to prevent his emasculation. He shouldered his way inside the chamber and slammed the door with a backward kick.

  He’d been torpedoing his way into a black rage, but seeing Sienna had calmed him. Just like that. Zacharel could blow him, because clearly he would never hurt this woman.

  She’d come back for him. That deserved a reward.

  He set her on her feet, and she immediately launched herself into full-blown attack. To be honest, he was glad as hell. Anything was better than that moment of defeat. Her little fists pummeled at him, and he accepted the abuse. Until he realized she’d made an improper fist and was actually hurting herself. He wound an arm around her waist, spun her and slammed her into the hard line of his body to still her.

  “Let me go!”

  “In a minute.” As she struggled, he pulled her thumb out from beneath her fingers and rearranged her fist. “Hit like this.” Done, he released her.

  She swung back around to beat at him some more, and this time the blows stung. “You aren’t walking out of this room until I’ve killed you!”

  That’d be a nice little trick, and maybe something to try later. “I’ll let you do anything you want to me, but I’d like an explanation first. What’s this about?”

  “Argh!” She leapt away from him, paced like a caged lion. Energy radiated from her, practically lifting her hair off her head. “It’s about the fact that all men suck! And in case you didn’t realize, you’re included in their numbers.”

  “I would hope so. Otherwise our romance would be missing something.”

  Her eyes glittered with jade fire, the gold lost. “Was that a crack about your penis? Because if so, you can do better.” She stalked to the dresser and shoved with all her might, knocking the thing to the ground. Wood splintered. The granite surface shattered. The drawers spilled from their holders. Scowling, panting, she grabbed one and lobbed it at him.

  He ducked, and the empty container smacked into the door. Both fractured. Another quickly followed, and he barely managed to dodge it.

  “Why are your friends here? Aren’t you afraid I’ll spy on them and learn their secrets?”

  “No.” And he wasn’t. Not anymore. He’d judged her harshly before, but he wasn’t going to make that mistake again. “Just like you aren’t afraid I’ll sleep with anyone else while we’re together.”

  Another drawer. “That’s what you told Susan!”

  “I know, and I’ve lived with the guilt ever since. I will never do that to you. Tell me you know that.”

  “Yes, I know that, but we weren’t together a few minutes ago. Which means you went after the first tail to twitch in your direction the second we were separated. But I’m not your girlfriend, and I will never be your girlfriend, so I can’t complain, can I?”

  “No,” he said quietly. “You won’t ever be my girlfriend.” Because you’re already my wife. Those words. He’d never thought to use them in regard to himself. But now that he had, yeah, his possessive instincts flared, insisting on their due. Didn’t help that Sienna was the sexiest female he’d ever seen. A live wire, sizzling, crackling, the essence of passion. Yeah, he was hard as a steel pipe.

  Another drawer was flung his way. Only four more were left. He’d let her have them, and then he was going in.

  “I’m so sick of this world, the lying and the tricking and the killing.” One. “That woman is going to pay. Oh, she’s going to pay so bad.” Two. “I’m going to join in and do a little killing of my own. Not through Wrath, but with my own hands.” Three. “That bastard Cronus thinks he can manipulate me, but he can’t. I’m done with all of you!” Four. “And I’m not going to save you, so there! You can go to—”

  Paris barreled forward, snagging her around the waist and tossing her on the bed. As she bounced on the mattress, her wings shot out to slow her momentum. He dove for her before she could catch herself and hover in the air, and for once he didn’t try to be careful. He pinned her, trapping her legs beneath the muscled weight of his own and her arms over her head. She tried to buck him off, but all she succeeded in doing was rubbing his hard-on against her clit.

  A cry of need parted those pretty lips.

  More!

  “You wet for me, baby?” He didn’t ask for permission, but transferred the shackling of her wrists to one hand and shoved up her shirt and bra with the other, baring her breasts. Her nipples were red and swollen, begging for him.

  “No,”
she said, and he knew she lied. “Not wet, not wet, soooo not wet.” Yeah, she knew it, too.

  He dipped down and sucked. She released another of those beautiful cries, her hips undulating against him. He kept sucking and she kept bucking against him, until he couldn’t stand the pressure anymore and shoved his hand down her pants, past those panties and straight into the heat of her. She practically bowed off the mattress.

  Yes, please, yes.

  One finger, two, three. He thrust them home, as deep as he could get them.

  “Paris… I… Oh, yes, yes!”

  “There’s my girl.” She drenched his hand, just the way he liked, so hot and silky, fitting him so damn perfectly, even this way. “When you used your mouth on me, I wanted to have my face buried between your legs. I still do. And next time, I will. I’m going to have all this honey down my throat.”

  “Paris…I’m going to… I’m so close already.” Her eyes were squeezed shut, those long lashes fused together. “Let go of my hands. I want to touch you, too. Need to touch you.”

  “You think those little taps you gave me weren’t foreplay? And hell, baby, I was hard for you long before that.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Oh, yeah. You still mad at me?”

  “Yes, but don’t stop.”

  “Got to. Gotta give you something more.” He removed his fingers just before she climaxed, and she screeched in frustration. “Gotta give you something better.”

  Her inhalations rasped in, her exhalations stormed out, both quick and heavy. Need truly was riding her hard—but not as hard as he was going to. He was drunk with his passion for her, his head swimming with it, his veins burning with it.

  He jerked her zipper down, but didn’t bother with shoving her pants away. Couldn’t. He was too busy undoing his own. He didn’t shove those down, either, and once his cock was free, he poised himself at her entrance. She couldn’t open her legs very wide, the material wouldn’t let her, so when he pushed in, he had to bear down some of his weight. But when he was in, he was really in, her inner walls locked around him, tighter than any fist he’d ever made.

  She screamed at the contact, and he loved the sound.

  Every thrust was a slow grind against her, and yeah, his body rubbed her clit with every downward glide. No longer did her words make any sense. She was panting and incoherent and lost to an all-consuming fervor. Sex, too. Hell, Paris, too. His balls were drawing up tighter and tighter, yet still sliding against the tops of her thighs.

  Her arms fought his hold—oh, baby, he hadn’t let her go, had he?—but he kept a steady grip, her breasts thrust up, her nipples rubbing his chest, the friction sparking all different kinds of flames. Satisfaction, lust, clawing need, contentment. With his free hand, he cupped her chin.

  “Look at me.” He slowed his thrusts.

  Took a moment, but ultimately she obeyed. Those hazel eyes were fever-bright, glazed, her pupils utterly blown.

  “You’re not done with me. Do you hear me? You are not done. You are mine.”

  “I’m…” Another scream, her inner walls milking him, her hips lifting…lifting…even lifting his weight, sinking him deeper than should have been possible.

  Sex shouted at the amazing pleasure.

  And like that, Paris erupted, the orgasm churning in his spine, shooting through his sac, up his erection and into her, pumping his seed straight into her body. A white-hot jet, again and again. He came so hard he saw stars.

  When he was at last emptied out, he opened his eyes to find Sienna had collapsed on the mattress and he had collapsed on top of her, was probably smashing her. He rolled to his side, but they were still connected so he took her with him. Her head just kind of lolled into the hollow of his neck.

  There was a long period of silence as they caught their breath and their heartbeats slowed, but all the while he knew one fact to be true: he’d never experienced sex like that with anyone else and he never would again. Hell, he didn’t want to.

  “I never had a temper before,” she murmured groggily.

  He ran a hand up and down the ridges of her spine. “Well, you’ve got one now, that’s for sure.”

  She bit his collarbone, a playful nip. He expected Sex to respond, but the demon had gone to sleep. “We shouldn’t have done that.”

  “I wanted to calm you down, and I did. Missionary accomplished.”

  Another nip. “I meant, we shouldn’t have had angry sex.”

  He said, “Couldn’t help myself. I liked your temper.”

  “I could tell. Is there a position you don’t excel at, though? You’re giving me a complex.”

  “If there is, will you help me practice until I do?”

  “So many times you’ll lose respect for yourself.”

  He laughed. He just couldn’t help himself. He was…happy. She was teasing him, as if they were friends. They were friends. “I wasn’t going to sleep with the goddess,” he said. “I swear to you. Never will I sleep with that female.”

  She placed a kiss just above his heart. “Don’t do that. Don’t promise things like that. Because even as jealous as I was, and yes, I’m freely admitting to a stalkerlike rage, I would rather you slept with a thousand like her than weaken and die.”

  His chest got tight. Gently he pulled out of her sweet, sweet body, and they both moaned at the loss. He stripped her, stripped himself, then placed his gun on the nightstand beside the bed, and his blade under his pillow. Safety taken care of, he went right back to cuddling Sienna into his side. First, though, he gave her nipples a Daddy’s back kiss.

  “We’re going to talk about that, and about what you were so upset about, because I know there’s more to it than the goddess,” he said. “In a few minutes. Right now, I want to say a few things, and then I want you to tell me something about you. I want to know you better.” In all ways.

  They weren’t leaving this bed until he’d seen her brain naked, too, and that was that.

  “O-kay.”

  “Susan Dille,” he said. “I cared for her. I wanted something to work with her, but I was growing weak. Finally I caved and slept with someone else. I was miserable, she found out, and things only got worse from there. I don’t want that with you.”

  “What makes me so different?” she whispered. “I mean, how can you be with me more than once?”

  “I’ve wondered about that myself, and I think it’s because my desire for you is more powerful than my demon.”

  “That’s… Oh, Paris. That’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “Good. Now it’s your turn for a confession. Start talking.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  “I, WELL… HMM,” Sienna said.

  “Come on, baby.” Paris combed his fingers through her hair. “Look past my terrible personality and hideous looks and throw me a bone. Teach me how to woo you properly.”

  She snorted. “I’d argue the hideous looks part.”

  “But not the terrible personality? Ouch. That hurts, baby.”

  Her next snort was half-bathed in laughter. “Well, this won’t teach you anything but my stupidity. Once I tried to spray tan my freckles away and ended up looking like a diseased carrot.”

  “I adore your freckles, and my favorite fantasy involves licking every single one of them. More secrets, though. I want more.” Was so hungry for them.

  A heavy pause, and when she next spoke, she’d lost her air of playfulness. “The guy I was going to marry, well, I was going to have his baby, but halfway through—” a shudder rocked her “—well, I lost her. My baby girl. Afterward I just sort of broke down and my fiancée left. I was moved to a different division of the Hunters’ enterprise.”

  “Oh, Sienna, oh, baby, I’m so sorry.”

  Tears filled her eyes, quickly masked. “I recovered.”

  No one ever recovered fully from that kind of loss.

  “I never allow myself to think of her. That’s probably unhealthy, but…”

  “But it’s how you s
urvive. What did you name her?” He knew she’d given the little girl a name.

  Another pause, then a hesitant, “Rebecca Skye.”

  He remembered when she asked him if he even wanted to have kids. Had she ever wanted to have another? Probably. The loss would have left a wound inside her, one that would never fully heal. He knew that kind of loss well. But pregnancy wasn’t a possibility for the undead. Still, he wondered if adoption was. Perhaps she could take in one of the kids with unexplained abilities Anya had hidden around the world to save them from Hunters. Sienna would make an amazing mother, protective, loving, fierce.

  “She’s in heaven, I think. Not Cronus’s heaven, or this heaven, or wherever we are, and not Zacharel’s heaven, either. I’ve never told anyone this, but when I died, I knew there was someplace wonderful to spend eternity, as well as someplace terrible. Maybe Cronus is my personal hell, my something terrible, but Rebecca is in that other place, that far better place, where someone far better than Cronus or Zacharel’s Deity rules. And now I want to talk about something else. Something light.”

  Light. He could give her light, even though he had a thousand questions about this “better place” and this “better” ruler, and her suffering and her dreams. “I enjoy watching romantic comedies, action adventures, horror, whatever. Anything but subtitles. That artsy crap is lame.” He cupped the sweetest ass on the planet and found himself hard all over again.

  “Tell me more.” With a voice full of rasp, she said, “I want to know about you, too.”

  “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.” And he meant that.

  “You and your friends…you’re really close.”

  Those same friends would have told him she had a hankering for information so that she could use it against him. Paris knew better. “We were created together. We’re family.”

  “Created?”

  “Yeah. Zeus made us from the blood of his best warriors, steel, baser instincts, things like that.”